


Sabia and Clark: Before Lust...or Love?

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Romance, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-02
Updated: 2006-11-22
Packaged: 2019-01-19 15:26:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12412914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: The story of James's parents before you see them in Lust...or Love? Did you ever wonder how they got where they are? How do they become so interested in the Malfoys? What happens when Clark leaves Sabia? What secrets are they hiding from their son? Find out here! (3 of 4)





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**Quick notes:** Just thought I’d let you all know something I’d never mentioned before. The meaning of Sabia is ‘ _sweet one_ ’, Caragh means ‘ _love_ ’, and Brennan means ‘ _sorrow_ ’. So basically, the full gist of Sabia Caragh Brennan is ‘ _The sweet one of love and sorrow_ ’ but that’s only if you play around with it. Also, there are references to Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII, George Boleyn, and Thomas Wyatt somewhere in here. To curb any questions—I do not believe that Anne was a ‘witch’ and am not endorsing any theories about her—it’s simply an interest of mine that came out while I was writing some banter.

**Sabia and Clark**

**Part I**

**……**

**_Early September_ **

**_1958_ **

**_Seventh Year_ **

Sabia Caragh Brennan, perhaps one of the most brilliant logical minds Hogwarts had ever seen, raised her eyes in a challenge and met Clark Potter’s dark irises. She tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulder and pointed her wand at him, a mocking smile coming to her lips. Clark Potter glanced at the clock, looking bored, and then his eyes flicked back to hers. Sabia’s entire being settled into this one moment, this one duel, this one chance to prove herself, and she forgot about her classmates and her professor and the dozens of obligations she had awaiting her after this class was over. She narrowed her gaze on the boy standing in front of her and tensed as she felt the shift of anticipation in the air.

“Begin,” snapped Professor Harding, stepping back and taking a seat in his plush chair. His beady eyes focused on Sabia’s hand as she twisted it to the side before he had finished his command, uttering a particularly nasty jinx.

Clark Potter simply smirked, his wand down at his side. He waved it vaguely around and Sabia’s jinx ricocheted off his bright blue shield, bouncing around the room before one of the students extinguished it with his wand.  

Sabia gritted her teeth at his arrogant manner and tossed her head again, allowing a split-second glance at Theodore Hastings, whose gray eyes were shining at her. Her gaze slid back to Clark just in time to see him point his wand at the ceiling over her head and created a rain cloud, which broke in a torrent, drenching her.

She wanted to scream in rage, but instead she pointed her wand above _his_ head and clearly said “ _Avis,_ ” then Banished her cloud. The sound of birds twittering filled the room as Clark tried to duck the vicious little birds. Sabia smiled and opened her mouth to cast another spell, but Clark Vanished all the birds in one swoop of his wand and came up swinging, blood on his face. Sabia yelped as the glass in the window behind her imploded, scrambling away from the sharp particles that flew at her. 

“STOP!” bellowed Professor Harding, standing and waving his wand to get rid of the glass. “Mr. Potter, is there something wrong with you?”

Clark, not even breathing heavily, glanced at his favorite teacher. “No, sir. Why?”

“While you have no problem with all but killing Mr. Hastings and Miss Chandler, you seem to have the _greatest_ aversion to even pointing your wand at Miss Brennan. Would you like to explain why?” Harding crossed his arms and pinned his eyes on Clark, who shrugged. 

“Couldn’t tell you, sir. I just reckoned it would be better to demonstrate a more indirect way of dueling with a partner. Since all the other duels today have been direct…I wanted a challenge.” Clark raised an eyebrow at Sabia and then looked at the professor in askance.

Professor Harding nodded, deep in thought. “I see…excellent, Mr. Potter. You two may continue.”

Sabia looked at Clark incredulously, then at Harding. Surely the professor didn’t _believe_ this bullshit?

“ _Expelliramus!_ ” Clark cried, finally directing his wand straight at Sabia’s chest.

Sabia sidestepped his spell and glared at him, finally getting really angry at him. She took a deep breath and lifted her dark wand, aiming it at Clark’s chest. “ _Infusco Pneumere!”_

Clark clutched at his chest and Sabia heard the entire class draw in a breath as one. The spell was archaic—it hadn’t been used in ages, and there was no way Clark would have heard of it. It was extreme for a classroom duel, but Clark Potter was the most infuriating boy she had ever met. If anyone deserved to have their breathing patterns interrupted, it was him.

He locked his eyes on hers and wheezed, without even moving his wand hand, “ _Corripio—animus!_ ”

Losing consciousness has always been interesting to Sabia Brennan. It was like something black began at the sides of your vision, blurring the edges, almost as if the layers could be peeled away to reveal another perception beneath. Sabia felt her arm go limp and heard an outcry from her Slytherin classmates, just as the Gryffindors got up to help Clark. She fell to the floor, unconscious, furious that she had lost.

**……**

**_Late October_ **

**_1958_ **

**_Seventh Year_ **

_There is nothing,_ Sabia thought, _like knowing you’re going to die._

The sound of her roommates waking her up made her groan silently, her head screaming for relief. She had what had to be the _worst_ hangover ever experienced in the history of mankind. She would willingly lie down in front of a herd of stampeding hippogriffs if it meant she could get rid of this headache and the strange memories that were coming back to her from the night before.

It wasn’t often that Sabia went on the Hogsmeade weekends, but she hadn’t been able to resist the first one of the year, and staying into the night for a party— _that_ was stupid. Sometimes she wondered why her professors found her so brilliant, when she was constantly doing stupid things.

_And why,_ Sabia thought, _do I keep on seeing_ Clark Potter’s _face?_

Indeed, as Sabia lay with her face pressed against the cool pillowcase, she could only see Clark Potter’s rather enchanting dark eyes. She vaguely remembered speaking to him, remembered him offering a compliment on her performance in their duel back in September—she could _vividly_ remember kissing him while lying down on a bed in Ashton Lively’s house…and then…nothing. She supposed she had passed out, but then again—she seemed to remember walking back to her dormitory.

Sabia groaned aloud this time and made a muffled sound of protest when her curtains were yanked aside, the high-pitched sound of the canopy hooks sliding against their metal rails sounding like a dozen tiny screams to her. She winced and shook her head, moaning, as Kathryn Lynch told her to wake up.

“Shaddap!” Sabia whispered, whimpering. “My head hurts!”

Kathryn laughed. “You got in about half-two,” she said reproachfully, starting to pull out Sabia’s clothes and things for the day. “I would have brought you back around midnight but you were nowhere to be found.”

As Kathryn pulled open the shades, Sabia shut her eyes at the sound and all she could see for a moment was the sight of her naked, glistening body moving in rhythmic time with Clark Potter’s, reflected in the large dresser mirror that adorned the wall of the guest bedroom in Ashton Lively’s house.

“Really?” Sabia squeaked, wondering whether Theodore knew what had happened last night. She sincerely hoped not.

“Theodore was looking for you, yeah? Stupid Hasting boys—they can never hold onto their women!”

Sabia rolled over and gingerly tried to stand. “That’s because Johnny is too hot for his own good and gets bombarded with girls, whether they’re in sixth year or not. That’s what you get for dating younger men, Kathryn.” She took her clothes from Kathryn and began to change, not the least ashamed of her nakedness. She and Kathryn were absurdly close; there was no need for modesty. 

“ _Your_ boyfriend set us up,” Kathryn pointed out. “It’s not my fault if Theo’s brother is a bloody sod.”

Sabia bent her sore body downwards in order to pull up her socks, hoping she hadn’t really slept with Clark Potter last night. “Don’t call him Theo,” she chided. “You know he hates that.”

Kathryn rolled her eyes. “Oh, Sabs,” she sighed. “You need a new boyfriend. Really, you do.”

Sabia looked at her socked feet for a moment, thinking of what had possible happened the night before. She pushed the possibilities out of her mind. “Well, Kath,” she answered. “You’re wrong. I’m perfectly happy with Theodore.” She met her friend’s sea-green eyes. “I don’t need anyone else.”

Kathryn sighed and shut one of the drawers in Sabia’s dresser. “I don’t know, Sabs,” she said. “It seems…well, you always wanted to be different, didn’t you? If you marry old Theo you’ll end up just like your mother. You’ll be a trophy.”

Sabia shook her head, thinking of her socialite mother. “I’m not a trophy,” she said quietly. “Theodore and I talk about as much as the next couple.”

Kathryn shook her head. “Sabs, everyone expects you to marry Theo, and for you—the _worst_ things always happen when you do what people ask of you. You’ll explode. You’ll hate each other. He’s decent, as men go—but don’t you want someone who’s more…passionate, you could say? Someone who actually challenges you?”

Sabia stood, her head pounding. She picked up her bag and stared down at Kathryn. “Kath, you…you don’t get it. I’m not strong enough to fight my parents. They want me to marry Theodore.”

Kathryn got her own bag and picked up Sabia’s brush, motioning for her friend to turn. Sabia did, and moments later she felt her hairbrush being yanked through the tangles in her hair. “You’re one of the strongest people I know. Don’t forget, love—your mother’s almost my aunt—you get it from her. Your parents have their own strength and they want one thing for you but…do you really want to grow up to hate everyone beneath you? Do you constantly want to play hostess for the _Malfoys_ —the Lestranges and the Blacks? You’re not me, Sabs. You’ll hate that.”

“No,” Sabia whispered, wincing as the brush tugged and her head gave a particularly protesting pound.

Kathryn set down the brush. “I’m sorry, Sabs,” she said quietly. “Just forget about it. Let’s go to breakfast so you can get rid of that hangover, yeah?”

If Clark Potter was downstairs, it was likely that her hangover would just get _worse_ , but she followed Kathryn downstairs anyways. Clark was at his table and he did not look up when she walked in, only continued speaking to his two best friends, Annamarie Denver and Jack Javenson. Sabia sat down at the Slytherin table and kissed Theodore lightly, feeling his hand settle comfortably on the small of her back. She didn’t have much of an appetite, but she drank at least three glasses of water and her headache began to recede.

“What time did you get in last night?” Theodore asked casually, before they left for Defense.

Sabia shrugged nonchalantly, her heart pounding. “Half-one, I guess,” she answered, taking off an hour. “I looked for you but I couldn’t find you.” 

Theodore peered at her face. “Really? I was there until at least three.”

Sabia shrugged. “I guess I didn’t see you. I was so sloshed I couldn’t wait. I needed Kath to help me back.”

Theodore looked across the table at Kathryn, who gave him a mocking smile and curled her fingers in a wave. 

“Toast?” he finally said, turning to Sabia, holding out a piece of toast with jam on it.

Sabia shook her head and buttered her own toast. She heard her peers chattering on about Alexis Hopewell, the Ravenclaw Muggleborn who had hit on Theodore’s younger brother, Johnny Hastings. A conversation about her rather under-endowed body followed, and Sabia found herself gritting her teeth. Couldn’t they all see that if they _didn’t_ intermarry with Muggles and Muggleborns, the wizarding race was going to die out? How could the purebloods keep on marrying each other if they ended up marrying cousins, half-sisters, their own _brothers and sisters?_

Sabia had no understanding of how intermarriage between the Pureblood families could work. Her own line would end with her; she had no sisters, no first cousins—her brother was disowned. Kathryn’s only brother had been killed last year in a duel, so her line ended with her as well. Sabia shook her head and told herself to stop thinking about it. She finished her toast, gulped down another glass of water, and then led the way to Defense. 

Kathryn was a very distant cousin of Sabia’s. Theodore was an even more distant cousin. Theodore’s mother had been a Black, whose uncle was Malfoy, whose cousin by marriage had been a Lynch, whose father…

And so on. 

Sabia hesitated before dropping into her normal seat, which gave her a plain view of Clark Potter. Theodore sat down next to her and Kathryn sat on her other side. Clark came in with his two friends and _he_ sat down diagonally up two rows. Sabia exhaled loudly and saw Kathryn glance at her, then at Clark. Her eyebrows went up into her hair.

“Sabs—”

“Not now,” Sabia whispered tightly, looking over at Theodore. He was talking to Mortimer Black, absorbed in his conversation.

Clark Potter and his two best friends looked at her. Sabia met Clark’s eyes for a split second and then she sank down in her seat, bright red.

He looked like he wanted to rip her clothes off.

**……**

**_Mid-November_ **

**_1958_ **

**_Seventh Year_ **

Sabia had always had a problem with being alone.

There was something about the isolation that made her uncomfortable, as if someone was going to step out from the shadows and slit her throat while she tried to run away. It was most assuredly a morbid thought, but it was her thought, and so she stayed afraid of being on her lonesome. 

She tapped her fingers impatiently as she waited to Kathryn to meet her in their appointed library spot. It was a table all the way at the back, away from the other students and their glares, which they seemed to reserve for all Slytherins. Sabia tossed her hair and gritted her teeth. It wasn’t often that she hid from her fellow students, but she had not the strength to deal with them today. She had had a row with Kathryn earlier, and was regretting telling her friend about what had happened with Clark. Kathryn had been avoiding her, but Sabia didn’t think she would blow her off like this.

“Hey.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for just a second, gathering all her disdain, and then turned to look at Clark Potter. “ _Yes?_ ”

His only reaction to her cold tone was a slight lift in his eyebrows. He motioned to the chair beside her. Sabia glanced around desperately. Why couldn’t Kathryn swallow her pride for _once_ in her bloody _life!?_ “Anyone sitting here?”

“Depends.”

“On what?” he questioned quietly. 

“On whether you want to sit or not,” she replied nastily.

He let out a long breath, as if realizing this was going to be harder than it looked. Sabia just smiled innocently up at him. He dropped into the chair and leaned forward so his face was close to hers, resting his elbows on his legs. “Look—”

“I believe we should have had this conversation a couple of weeks ago,” Sabia said, leaning back and disturbed by his proximity. 

Clark looked to be deep in thought. “Well…I didn’t really know what to say, Brennan. It certainly wasn’t what I planned on when I went to Lively’s party. Nope, can’t say I planned on it.”

“Well,” Sabia began, “then I’m sorry things didn’t go as you planned.”

“Oh, don’t apologize!” Clark exclaimed, smiling. “It was…nice. Don’t apologize.”

“If _sex_ with me was so _nice_ ,” she said, “then why didn’t you say a single word to me for ages afterwards?”

Clark’s smiled melted off his face. “Ah. You see, there’s the problem.”

“The problem?” Sabia asked, again looking around for a means to escape.

“Yes. I think we should just forget about it.”

“Already done,” Sabia told him hastily. She snapped her fingers. “Like that.”

“And don’t tell anyone. Even Lynch.”

Sabia frowned, feeling a little twinge of fear. She had already _told_ Kathryn—and it wasn’t as if Clark hadn’t told his best friends! “I can tell who I please. I could tell Theodore if I wanted!”

Clark snorted. “Please don’t. I’d hate to have to kill him if he came at me like a possessive bull.”

Sabia had no reply; Clark was the best Defense student in the school. He far outranked Theodore. Any response she made would sound pathetic. “Fine. I won’t tell anyone. As if I’d want to think about it.”

Clark shrugged and stood. “Alright then, that’s all good. I’d hate to have the school know I slept with a Slytherin.” He turned and left with one last, mocking smile.

Sabia’s mouth dropped open. 

She sat in her seat for a minute while he left and then turned around, opening up her books. Thirty seconds later she was up and running after him, her fists clenched at her sides. She caught up with him and yanked on the back of his school robes, causing him to stumble. The staircase they were on shuddered beneath them and began to move, but Sabia just glared at him. “ _What_ is wrong with you?” she asked loudly.

Students on staircases below them looked up. Sabia pulled an unresisting Clark up the staircase and into one of the dark side corridors, shoving him against the wall and stepping up to regard him with impassioned eyes.

“Is there something wrong?” he asked, unfailingly polite.

“Why do you damn Gryffindors think you’re all such great people?” she hissed.

She had attacked his House. His eyes flashed and he straightened up. “You can’t be serious. Why do all the bloody _Slytherins_ think they own the whole damn universe?”

“That’s a stereotype and you know it! Why can’t the school just say, ‘Oh, you’re a part of the community too, let’s not WALK BY YOU LIKE YOU’RE THE BLACK PLAGUE!’? Hmm? Is that really so hard?”

“Lower your voice!” he snapped.

“Oh, _so_ sorry. Someone might think you’re having clandestine meetings with a Slytherin!”

“Look,” he said tiredly, “I thought you’d be _glad_ if we decided not to say anything. You’ve got a boyfriend you’re going to marry, so it’s not like neither of us talking about it to anyone can fuck things up, is it? We tell people and your relationship fails, we stay quiet and you get to grow up just like you’re expected. Alright? _Happy?_ ” He held out a hand in supplication but she flung it away, breathing hard at his moronic interpretation of her life.

“You think all I’m going to do is grow up and marry Theodore?” she clarified, her voice hoarse. “That’s what you think?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think of you—”

“I didn’t ask what you thought _of_ me!” she cried. “I asked whether you thought I was going to be a lackey to a prick for the rest of my life!”

“YES!” he yelled suddenly, his fingers curling into each other as if he wanted to strangle her. “You stupid _Slytherins_! You’re all the same. You all marry for blood, whether it’s incest or not—and then you all gather round and plan which Muggleborns to torture next! Your problem, Miss _Sabia Brennan_ , is that you think you’re different but you’re _not_! You’re going to marry Theodore Hastings, you’re going to laugh while the Malfoys make cracks about my entire family, you’re going to have little kids and teach them your Slytherin ways! That’s the way the world is! Life isn’t fair; you do what your parents want you to do and you never do anything out of the ordinary, like sleep with Gryffindors or—mmph!”

Clark Potter had a very nice mouth. Sabia was sorry to slap it, even if she would never admit it. 

“I’m not like the rest of them,” she told him fiercely. “How dare you assume that I am—you don’t even know me!”

“That’s right! I don’t even know you, never mind the fact that I shagged you two times!”

Sabia gritted her teeth. “I thought you didn’t want to be reminded that you slept with a Slytherin. _Two times._ ”

“You—you are _such_ a bitch,” he spat, pushing past her. Sabia tried to catch his arm but he wrenched it away, whirling on her. “Stop!” he commanded. “Don’t you—don’t even come near me anymore. I don’t want to look at you.”

“Oh, yes,” Sabia said scathingly. “I’m too much of a Slytherin for you!”

He opened his mouth to reply but just twisted it into a snarl and stormed away. Sabia let herself enjoy a moment of self-gratification for finally winning something against him before she returned to her dorm.

**……**

**_Late December_ **

**_1958_ **

**_Seventh Year_ **

Sabia had been missing her Potions book for the better part of a month, and now she was whiling away Christmas Holiday hours that could have been spent on her killer essay. There was little for her to do in her big, echoing house, and she would have welcomed the momentary respite from boredom. 

“SABIA CARAGH! GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!”

Sabia squeaked and fell off her bed with a thump. She scrambled up and rushed downstairs, looking around widely when she reached the high-ceilinged living room with the huge Christmas tree in the center. Her father stood by the tree, his face red, and next to him was…Theodore’s mother, Victoria.

Victoria Hastings and Sabia mutually hated one another. Victoria Hastings had been a beautiful woman, but hers was the kind of beauty that peaked and then faded rapidly. Sabia had seen her glamorous photographs from when she was in her twenties, her hair still thick and gold and shining, her skin still unlined, her body still toned and slender. Now her hair had faded to the peculiar ash shade all blonds seemed to fade to, and she was unhealthily thin. Her fall from grace had left her bitter, and she envied anyone who took away her son’s attention, especially Sabia. Her disdain had always been clear, sometimes to the point where she was outwardly rude. Looking at her now, Sabia felt pure dread creeping into her veins. Victoria’s face was a pasty gray, but her eyes when the met Sabia’s were glittering with triumph. She looked to be on the verge of screaming. 

“Sabia, I’ve just received some disturbing news,” her father said evenly, his body poised for the attack. Sabia saw her mother in standing against the doorjamb to the living room, only half of her makeup applied. They were supposed to be attending a party tonight. 

Sabia snapped to attention, her hands linking behind her back and her spine ramrod straight. No one could ever say she had not been raised properly. “Really, sir?”

“Yes.” Her father paused, searching for the words. “Victoria just told me that you’ve been…fraternizing with Clark Potter.”

Sabia did not look at Theodore’s mother, but her heart sank; her very veins turned to ice. She schooled her face to remain blank. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean by _fraternizing_. I’ve spoken to him in classes a few times, but—”

“Don’t you dare lie, you—you _hussy_!” Victoria yelled, and Sabia’s mother straightened, looking at her daughter with a startled expression on her face. 

Sabia stiffened even more, if that was possible. “I beg your pardon?” she asked, outraged. She looked at her father, who was staring at her grimly.

“I let you carry on with my _son!_ ” Victoria shrieked. “I let you think you had a chance of becoming a part of my family—but no, oh no, you pretentious little gold-digger, don’t you _dare_ think that _you_ can EVER touch Theodore again, now that you’re soiled—you—you—”

“How dare _you_ speak to me like that?” Sabia burst out, looking to her parents for help. Her father was grim-faced and her mother—her mother’s face was as blank as her older brother’s sometimes was. 

“ _I will not_ tolerate being spoken to like that, Richard!” Mrs. Hastings heaved, turning to Sabia’s father for help.

Her father looked thoughtful for a while, before a strange and terrifying sort of conviction came over his face. “Have you been involved with Clark Potter, Sabia?”

_Yes._

They would kick her out.

_No._

She would never have any privacy again; the trust was gone.

Some things were worth a lack of privacy, such as a roof and her pride. Her brother had taught her that much. “No,” she said firmly.

Richard turned to Victoria Hastings, whose fingers were curled into claws. “If my daughter says she did not have a relationship with Clark Potter, then I believe her.”

Victoria’s glittering eyes stayed on Sabia. “Of course,” she rasped, clearing her throat. “If darling, _sweet_ _Sabia_ says no then it _couldn’t_ be possible. Terribly sorry to have bothered you Richard, I’ll just leave now, shall I? I’ll see you tonight, Emma.” She waited for Richard to show her to the door, her eyes so focused on Sabia she couldn’t break away. Sabia stood with her perfect posture until her father showed Theodore’s mother out of the manor and her mother returned to her preparations. Then she allowed her body to sag in relief. She sank down to the floor, her head in her hands, and fought back tears.

The restrictions placed on her life were so many and so tight that she rarely tried to rebel. If her parents—if anyone—ever found out that she had lost her virginity to a boy whose pedigree only went back for five generations, she would never be accepted back into her community again. She swallowed hard, now realizing why Clark had told her not to tell anyone. He had only told his best friends, and she had only told hers. Sabia had said nothing to Victoria—so there were four other possible people, and Kathryn was probably less likely than Sabia to tell. She was a wonderful friend, if a little bit akin to a doormat. 

Sabia composed herself, sucking a breath of air and scrambling up the stairs before her father returned. She locked herself in her room and looked around, suddenly hating the look of everything. The Weird Sister’s poster on the far wall, the dark green coverlet on the bed, the ornate mirror. It was all so overdone. She hurried into the bathroom and turned on the water, peeling off her clothes and jumping under the hot spray. She smoothed her hair away from her face. She knew they had to leave in forty minutes, so she got out of the shower and wrapped herself in a huge white bath sheet. 

She sat at her vanity, still in the towel, her hair slicked back from her face and still feeling burdened despite it all. 

She looked at her features in the mirror, frowning in consternation. By all accounts, she should have quite a bit of trouble attracting blokes, but that never seemed to be a problem, whereas Kathryn, with her delicate beauty, was frequently without male company. Sabia knew she had nice hair, but her nose was too thin for her face and her eyes were too large. Her mouth was thin and her lips were always pale. Sabia’s entire body was always pale, with freckles scattered in some places. 

She blinked and then began to brush her hair, sighing as the charmed brush instantly dried to strands to silky perfection. She dressed in a skirt and blouse and then put her robes on over it, finishing with her shoes and her customary light makeup. Sabia went nowhere without eyeliner. Her hair was now completely dry, and she pinned it up into a tight twist. She looked at her watch and with fifteen minutes to go, went over to the fireplace and threw some powder into it. “8 Holden Place!” she called, and stuck her head in.

She squeezed her eyes shut and when the world stopped spinning, she was staring out at a pair of shoes, which became a face as her older brother, Bryan, took a seat and gave her a bemused smile. “Sabs,” he said, his deep voice mild and warm. “I thought the fireplaces were blocked to my address.”

Sabia snorted, inhaling soot and coughing to clear her throat. “Underestimation,” she sighed mockingly. “Now _that’s_ a powerful tool.”

“Of course. As if you would let a few extremely _powerful_ wards get in your way. Out with it. How’d you get around them?”

Sabia ignored his question, reluctant to tell him of the stash of arcane spells stuffed into the bottom of her trunk. “How’s Anna? And Cara?”

“They’re fine,” her brother said. “Sabs—”

Her brother had been the one to begin calling her “Sabs.” Her parents had disliked the shortening of the name and had disapproved, but Bryan had shown at an early age that he didn’t care what his parents wanted. The name had stuck.

“Bryan,” she interrupted, “I may have to come stay with you for a little while after tonight.”

Her brother paused, looking at her. “Has it finally gotten to you?”

Sabia hesitated. Bryan sighed. The stayed there in silence for a moment while Sabia’s knees protested their treatment. “Fine,” he said, giving in. “If you need…if you need anything, I’m here, Sabs.”

Sabia exhaled loudly. “Thanks—”

Footsteps in the hall had her saying a hasty goodbye and pulling her head out of the fireplace, dusting soot from her hair and coughing. There was knock on the door, and then Wily, her mother’s personal house elf, told her that her parents were about to leave. Sabia hurried downstairs and met her parents’ steely eyes, gulping and hoping that they would never realize she had lied about Clark Potter. Such a revelation would be devastating. They would kick her out of the manor. She followed them into the floo, squinting and managing to keep her grace as she stumbled out of the fireplace into the Lynch’s living room. 

Sabia smiled immediately and began making rounds, saying hello and asking about wives and cousins and siblings. She knew Kathryn and Theodore would be here somewhere, but she did not know where to find either of them, and besides, she had no idea how Theodore would react to her after that spectacle with his mother.

Finally she caught sight of a two familiar heads of hair, one dark and one silvery-blond. She hurried over to Theodore and Kathryn, stopping in front of them and anxiously waiting for them to turn to her.

Neither one did.

“Kathryn?” she asked, surprised. Her voice softened when she looked at the boy beside her. “Theodore?”

Both of them turned away from her. Kathryn’s face was red and she toyed with her blond hair, but she said not a word to Sabia. Her words faltered as she spoke to Theodore about how _wonderful_ the weather was, while Theodore stood with a stony face, his drink gripped tightly in his hand.

“ _Kathryn!_ ” Sabia hissed, and Kathryn turned slightly, looking at wall.

“What?” she muttered out of the side of her mouth. Theodore stared at Kathryn’s face, his lips trembling with anger.

“What’s this, then?” Sabia asked. “Why aren’t you speaking to me?”

“Meet me in my room in five minutes, alright?” Kathryn said, then turned and started up a loud conversation with Theodore about a potion they had been studying before the holidays started. Sabia stared at her best friend’s profile for a moment, then looked at her boyfriend (if she could still call him that) and then, inexplicably, her eyes were drawn across the room to where Victoria Hastings and her husband stood talking with Kathryn’s parents. Victoria looked at Sabia, that hateful, triumphant look in her eyes, and Sabia turned slowly and headed to the back of the house and up the kitchen stairs, shutting herself in Kathryn’s room and sitting on her soft bed. She put a hand over her mouth and looked at herself in the mirror, breathing heavily. 

_“Everything will be alright,_ ” she said sharply to the empty room, but there was a heavy feeling of hopelessness weighing on her chest. Sabia had seen this happen before—she had seen this treatment before. _Her brother_ had received this treatment before he had left the Pureblood circuit altogether. Sabia didn’t like her life very much and she couldn’t care less about her parents, but it was all she knew and she didn’t want to leave it, not _really_ …

Sabia allowed herself one shudder of fear before she straightened, wiping her cheeks. She lifted her chin and stared at the door, gritting her teeth as the handle turned and Kathryn slipped in. Her beautiful hair glimmered in the light from the candles; she didn’t smile.

Sabia waited for her to speak, but as she looked at Kathryn, she realized something. 

Kathryn, Sabia thought with shock, was a _coward_.

For years, Kathryn had always hedged around when Sabia would launch into passionate tirades about her parents and their bigoted ideas and the way her fellow housemates treated people who weren’t as pure of blood as them. Kathryn would always look around, scared that someone would hear. Kathryn did _not_ have the strength to stand up for what she believed in—or, a more horrifying thought, she did not need to stand up for herself because she _did_ believe in the nonsense most Purebloods believed.

_Disillusionment_ , Sabia realized, an ache in her heart, _is a bitter taste_.

She licked her lips and swallowed, somehow knowing that she would never be friends with Kathryn again.

“So?” Sabia finally said, the word harsher than she had intentioned. Kathryn winced and looked around for an escape, but they both knew there wasn’t one.

“They _forced_ it out of me!” Kathryn burst out, her eyes already glistening with tears. Sabia felt an irrational irritation with her friend’s weakness, but remembered that she herself wasn’t always perfectly strong either. 

“What?” Sabia asked, bewildered. “Forced what out of you? I just wanted to know why you were ignoring me—who talked to you—what did they force out of you, Kathryn?” she asked suddenly, a horrible, hideous suspicion suddenly filling the air between them, these two girls who were so very different. 

Kathryn clamped her lips shut and began to tremble, glancing towards the window and the door. She opened her mouth, shut it, and then rubbed her probably clammy hands on the sides of her high-quality robes. She looked lovely, but there was something slightly ugly about her to Sabia now.

“Who, then?” Sabia asked. “I can rather suss out what you went and told _them_ , but who is _them_. Who asked you?”

Kathryn let out a long breath. “Mrs. Hastings. She called the other day and when my mother was in the other room she just started _talking_ …and then she weaseled it out of me, told me that I didn’t have to live in your shadow, that you weren’t better than me—and if there was anything I thought she should know, I should tell her now because Theodore was too enamored with you. So I blurted it out—about Potter, and then she left without even saying goodbye—then she came back and talked to my parents and they told me I had done the right thing in telling them, that I should be proud, and that I wasn’t to speak to you—and then…”

“Then what?” Sabia prompted. Kathryn was breathing hard and she shook her head. “ _What_ , Kathryn? You can tell me—”

“Theodore was with her,” Kathryn whispered. “He asked me if it was really true.”

Sabia felt a sharp twinge somewhere within her at the sound of Theodore’s name. It was impossible to describe how they had grown up together, always playing with each other from the day they were born. Becoming a couple had just been the next step—the perfect step, the one everyone expected and congratulated them on when it happened. Sabia knew that Theodore had been one of her best friends for many years…but…he was the kind of person who made decisions hastily and then stuck to them; he had decided that Purebloods were superior to all others, and Sabia knew they could never last while he believed it. Up until five minutes ago, she had still thought they would get married, whether she wanted it or not. 

Sabia knew that she no longer knew the person Theodore was. Each person had a path. Sabia’s was not entwined with Theodore’s anymore. 

“What did you tell him?” she asked, imagining Theodore’s impassive face. 

“I told him it was,” Kathryn replied, her voice blanketed in shame. She raised her glittering eyes to meet Sabia’s. “You shouldn’t have done it Sabia, trashed or not. It was _wrong_ , after everything Theodore’s done for you, after how wonderful he’s been…he didn’t deserve that. He really…for some reason he really loved you—he’s so hurt—you chose a Gryffindor over him…I know I said you needed a new boyfriend, but…”

“I didn’t _choose_ —Potter,” Sabia said, swallowing his first name and saying his surname. “It was an accident, really. And besides—Theodore’s more upset that he isn’t the only boy in my life, I guess you could say. His ego’s hurt…sometimes I think he just wants to get rid of me, as if he can’t handle me. Kathryn—you said you wouldn’t tell.”

Kathryn laughed weakly. “As if I could withstand Mrs. Hastings. She’s a vulture. It’s a good thing she loves me.”

Sabia sighed, looking at her hands. “Oh, Kath. I’m done, aren’t I? My parents—I told them it wasn’t true and they’ve gone and believed me—but I’m out. I’m another Bryan. My parents—they’ll stick up for me though, if I tell them it didn’t happen. And I can convince Theodore…Mrs. Hastings will have to deal with me,” Sabia said suddenly, realizing that she _couldn’t_ give up her life. She could _not give up_. “I don’t care what they say—if I talk to Theodore he’ll accept me—I’ll be fine—oh, Kath, everything’ll be alright.”

Her friend looked stricken. “Shouldn’t—shouldn’t you wait a while?” she asked quietly. “Theodore—you hurt him, Sabia—maybe you should just let him alone.”

“I _can’t!_ I can’t do that!” Sabia cried. “Kath, don’t you see that I don’t have anywhere else to go? Theodore is my only option—yes, they’ll listen to him…”

Kathryn got up abruptly. “You can’t talk to Theodore, Sabia.”

Sabia rolled her eyes and looked up at Kathryn. “Why not?”

Kathryn took a deep, deep breath. “I won’t let you.”

“You won’t _let me?_ ”

“I can’t let you,” Kathryn said, a strange determination in her voice. Her pretty eyes blazed when they met Sabia’s. “You can’t have Theodore, Sabs. You’ve missed out on him. He’s not—he isn’t yours anymore.”

“If he’s not mine, then who—” Sabia trailed off and looked sharply at the necklace Kathryn was wearing. It wasn’t a pendant—it was a ring, a gold ring studded with emeralds, a ring Sabia _knew_ symbolized a promise. It was Theodore’s—his _fiancee’s ring._ He had told her he would give to her on their graduation, and now Kathryn was wearing it. “Oh, _Kathryn_ ,” she breathed out, her eyes focused on those winking emeralds. Kathryn closed her hand in a fist around the ring, obscuring it from view.

“I’m sorry, Sabia, but Theodore Hastings is probably the best catch I could ever get. You get _everything_ I want, Sabia—and you’re not half as pretty as I am, everyone says so. You want Theodore even though his mother hates you, even though you don’t agree with him about anything. You think you’re untouchable—but you’re not. And if you dare persuade Theodore to forget me and start up again with you, I’ll—I swear on Morgana’s heart, I’ll kill you.”

Sabia stared at Kathryn, wide-eyed and speechless. Her best friend was threatening to kill her. Her best friend wanted to _kill her_. “Kathryn—”

“No. You _listen_ ,” Kathryn hissed, her face twisted. “I’ve been talking to Theodore for the past year now—you two have been over for months but neither of you will admit it. I’m _not_ letting you have him when _I_ can!”

“Kathryn—” Betrayal—that was all Sabia could comprehend. Both were too noble to cheat on her, but talking about Sabia for a year was bad enough. She swallowed hard, thinking that her friendship with Kathryn shouldn’t end like this—not over Theodore.

“Sabia— _stop it_! I _hate you_. I do everything for you and you don’t give me anything in return! You get all the blokes, everyone likes you—well I’ve got something more important.” Her hand tightened around Theodore’s ring. “I’ve got _this_ , and I’m _never_ letting you take this from me.”

Kathryn whirled and hurried from the room, leaving Sabia on the bed, shocked. Kathryn had never been able to resist what wasn’t hers—she did exactly as her parents told, settled for whatever came her way because it was all she was going to get. She had no drive to go out and make her life better, to succeed and make something of herself. All the while, while Sabia had been talking about become a high-standing Ministry employee and traveling the world, Kathryn had been dreaming of marrying rich.

They didn’t come any richer than Theodore Hastings. 

Sabia struggled to get to her feet and returned to the party, looking for her parents so she could tell them she wasn’t feeling well and would be returning home. Try as she might, she couldn’t find them. She jumped when she felt a touch on her shoulder and saw Kathryn’s youngest uncle, George; he was only five years older than Sabia and Kathryn. He leaned in and told her to go the study, his grip and eyes uncertain. Sabia used to have a crush on him. 

“No,” Sabia whispered, and turned to leave, but George kept a grip on her arm and pulled her to the study, knowing she would rather die than make a scene. He opened the door to the study and followed her in, then closed it behind her. 

It was as if Sabia had been pulled into an old book. Her parents, Theodore’s parents, and Kathryn’s parents stood on one side of Kevin Hasting’s desk. Kathryn and Theodore were both sitting primly in chairs centered before the handsome desk, and Sabia could feel George’s apologetic presence behind her. At least he had followed her into the snake pit, instead of leaving her to fend for herself. Sabia had always liked George.

“Sit, Sabia,” said Mrs. Lynch tersely.

“No,” Sabia’s mother cut in, her voice harsh. “Don’t you dare sit, Sabia. Don’t sully any of these chairs with your body—it would be a waste to burn them.”

Sabia flinched. She felt a sympathetic hiss from George behind her. 

“You lied to us,” Richard Brennan said coldly. “I would have thought you would be more cautious than your brother, but I was rather wrong.”

“Dad—”

“I’m not your father anymore, Sabia,” continued Richard in the same cold voice. Sabia look at Mrs. Hastings, who was staring at Sabia with a manic gleam of ecstasy in her eyes. Sabia felt a rush of pity and hatred for this woman; she had spent much of the past few years trying to tear a teenage girl down from her position, and now Victoria had finally succeeded. In the eyes of all the people who mattered, Sabia was nothing. 

“Go to Brennan Manor, Miss Brennan, collect your things, and leave the premises. From this day forth, Mr. Brennan and I have no wish to contact you or speak to you ever again. Good evening.” Sabia’s mother’s imperial voice cut through Sabia’s disbelief. 

Sabia’s mouth fell open the slightest bit. In some strange part of her mind, she had expected this. This is why she had asked her brother for a place to stay, just in case. She swallowed hard and look at Theodore’s hard eyes, then at Kathryn’s lowered lids. Kathryn parents had absolutely no expression on their faces. Sabia’s own parents were glaring at her, and Theodore’s parents had gleeful, sick, twisted looks on their faces.

“I’ll escort you to the door,” George O’Brien said coldly from behind her. Even he hated her now. He did not take her arm, as he normally would have, as was expected of in polite and pure society. He opened the door for her and waited for her to turn and exit. Sabia left the room and turned her back on her family and her friends; George shut the door firmly with a click. 

Thank Merlin no one knew yet, knew that Sabia had been disowned. No one yet knew that she had slept with Clark Potter, whose two greatest crimes were that he was a Gryffindor and his grandmother had not been a pureblood. 

Now George took her arm, startling her by touching her. She looked at him, a little lost, and swallowed again. “Hello,” she said calmly. “How are you? I never got a chance to ask.”

“Shut up, stupid,” he said affectionately, and she was startled to see that his eyes were shining. “What did you do to deserve this?”

“I…ah…I slept with Clark Potter,” she murmured, and waited for his disapproval. Instead, he just shook his head. 

“Come on,” he said softly. “Before they see us.” He pulled her in a direction away from the door, back towards where the family living quarters were. He shut the door that blocked the corridor from the sight of the rest of room and then took her into one of the guest rooms. He sat her down on the bed, took her purse from her hands, and proceeded to take out the pins from her hair. He ran his hands through her hair and massaged her scalp for just a moment, before Sabia grabbed his wrists.

“Stop…George, what are you doing?”

He smiled down at her and sighed. “Figures.” 

Sabia frowned. Wonderful. He’d brought her here because thought she was _easy,_ now. “Oh, really? You can leave now, George. I’ll let myself out.”

“I’m not going to rape you, love,” George said, collapsing into an armchair with an exhalation. “We’re just going to talk.”

_Before you get to shag me?_ Sabia thought. She grabbed her purse. “No thanks.”

George waved his hand, which Sabia realized contained a wand, at the door. There was a echoing sound of something locking and Sabia’s heart stopped. _He was going to hurt her._ Discreetly, she tried to open her purse.

“Didn’t I just tell you that I wasn’t going to hurt you, Bee?” he said exasperatedly. “Just _sit_ , please.”

She made a face at him and sat.

“We’re friends, right?”

Sabia snorted.

“No, really, Bee. Aside from your undying love for me—” He smiled, showing her that she could too, “—we’ve always been friends, haven’t we?”

“I suppose,” Sabia said.

There was a pause. “We were supposed to get married, you know.” He regarded her levelly as her head shot up. “Really. I heard your parents talking with Kathryn’s parents and my parents when I was…seven? That was the year before they set you and Theodore up together.”

“Oh…”

“I was going to say…if you’re pregnant, I’ll marry you.”

“I’m not pregnant,” she said through gritted teeth, trying to stop herself from crying, “but it’s wonderful of you to offer. I wouldn’t either way.”

“Why ever not?” George asked, apparently astounded. “You’d marry me if you were pregnant, wouldn’t you? I’m not that bad to look at, am I?”

That drew a chuckle from Sabia. George was as good looking as all the rest of the O’Brien family. “Shut up, prat. No…just…if I were pregnant, I’d go to Clark. I doubt he’d ever dare turn me away, for all that I’m a Slytherin.”

George’s face froze. “Right. I was trying to forget that he’s the bloke you slept with.”

Sabia had gotten up. Now she walked over to the dresser and ran her fingers over the dark, shiny, immaculate surface of polished mahogany. “He’s not that bad, you know,” she said offhandedly, studying her reflection in the mirror. 

“If you say so, Bee,” George replied. “Listen. I…I’m here for you, but—”

“Not at the expense of your honor. Don’t worry, George. We can be _secret_ friends,” she said mockingly. 

George stood. “No, Sabia—I’m very serious. If you ever, ever, ever need anything you must get in touch with me. Here.” He went to the ornate, gold-inlaid chest that stood in the corner and took out a key from his pocket. He inserted it into the keyhole and the lock clicked open. He produced a jingling bag and handed it to her. Obviously this was the infamous stash of gold he had always told Sabia and Kathryn about, hidden somewhere in his sister’s house.

“ _George—_ ” she gasped. It was most definitely more gold than she would need. She had her own stash. “I couldn’t!”

He gave it to her and she almost fell, she was so surprised from the weight. She began to protest once more but he silenced her with a look. “No one will miss it, Bee. We’ve got so much spare gold lying around that it’ll be thought lost. You’ll need money. Your brother was lucky enough to fall in love with a rich Muggleborn and find a good job— _you_ can’t go to Clark Potter without his baby.”

“Don’t call me Bee,” she said quietly.

“Shut up,” he replied, his voice just as soft, if not softer. “You know you love it. It’s better than ‘Sabs’. Kathryn started that one.”

“You can’t fault her,” Sabia said fairly, but she felt a stab of pure hate in her heart. _Kathryn._

“Yes, we can. My niece is a social climbing doormat.”

“She’s not a social climber,” Sabia said, wondering why she was defending her. “She’s always been at bloody top of the food chain that’s pure society.”

“ _You_ were always at the top of the food chain. Face it, she’s replaced you.”

A slow smile spread over Sabia’s face, though she still felt slightly sick. “Well…you’re the last male O’Brien. All the others are girls. They can’t disown you…besides, your parents are more easy-going.”

“I’ve thought it over in the past few moments. We’re _not_ getting married unless you wind up pregnant,” George warned her. 

“I’d be Kathryn’s aunt…and Theodore’s,” Sabia giggled.

George chuckled. “This is so not funny,” he said, just as he grabbed his hand and winced.

“What is it?” Sabia asked, alarmed, but then she relaxed. Most people in the O’Brien and Lynch families wore rings set with precious stones on their fingers. When another family member wanted to summon someone, they said a spell and the ring went hot. Someone had summoned George.

“Quickly. Go,” George, said, jerking his head to the fireplace. He grabbed her arm, threw some floo powder into the fire, and said “ _Go._ ” He kissed her lightly on the cheek and then pushed her in.

“Brennan Manor!” she called, and the last thing she saw was George’s face before she landed in her own living room. As soon as she had steadied herself, she checked to make sure her parents were still gone before racing up to her room and throwing open her trunk. At seventeen, she was still legally too young to do magic out of school, but exceptions were always made for her family. The head of the Misuse of Magic office was a relative. She was also legally too young to Apparate, but she could do that too. Her parents did not know that, though. 

She shrunk everything as fast as she could and threw things into the trunk. Before he had left, her brother had made sure everything in her room was organized so that she could leave at a moment’s notice, if the need arose. Sabia had never thought the easy-packing scheme would come in handy, but she had also never thought that Kathryn would do something like this. Sabia looked around her spacious childhood bedroom for a quick second before making a sound of disgust. Her life here was over, and she should be glad to be rid of it. 

She still had Hogwarts. She still had her brother. She still had her pride. She still had George.

She still cried when she got to her brother’s house.

**……**

**_Late January_ **

**_1959_ **

**_Seventh Year_ **

A month later, Sabia was sitting in the library writing to her brother when she heard a loud explosion that rattled the shelves and caused several people to yell. Sabia was up like a shot and had her wand out, throwing her quill down and walking towards the doors of the library. The librarian was standing, her hand over her heart, staring at the doors as if something was about to burst through them and kill them. Sabia gave her a slightly irritated look and left the library, forgetting her letter.

Another loud sound sent her running down the Entrance Hall, where a large crowd had gathered. Sabia put her hand over her mouth when she saw George O’Brien, bleeding from the cheek, send a nasty hex at Clark Potter. She saw Professor Doyne coming at a run and Sabia ran forward to George, grabbing his wrist and squeezing tightly.

“Put it down,” she hissed urgently. “He’ll kill you!”

“I’m going to curse his face off, Bee,” George said of the coolly impervious Clark, who was untouched. Panting, George tried to shake Sabia off as Doyne arrived on the scene.

“He’s twice the dueler you and I are combined,” Sabia hissed, finally tugging George’s arm down to his side. 

Doyne, the Arithmancy Professor and one of the most strict, told Clark off and removed fifty points from Gryffindor. She then looked at George, her lips thinning as if she was wishing he was still a student under her jurisdiction. “Well, Mr. O’Brien. I’m glad to see that you have returned. I hope I don’t need to explain further the consequences of your actions just now, don’t you?”

“You don’t, Professor,” George mumbled, then followed Doyne like a kicked dog up to the Headmaster’s office. Sabia briefly remembered the coded letter he had sent her telling her that he had a meeting with Dippet this month. Sabia stared after George’s back and then looked at Clark through the dispersing crowd of students. 

He was looking at her carefully, inspecting her with a bit of a gleam in his eyes. The way he looked at her…it wasn’t _only_ lewd—there was a good deal of concern in that glance. Sabia had not spoken to him once since the end of the Christmas Holidays, but he, as well as the rest of the world, unquestionably knew that she had been disowned, just as her brother before her. 

Without a word, she brushed past Clark and returned to her library and her letter.

George found her there some hours later. She had dozed off and he roughly shook her awake just as the library was closing, looking properly chastised already. He looked so miserable that Sabia couldn’t yell at him.  

She simply scolded. “What were you thinking, you stupid arse?” she asked irritably. “Why’d you have to attack him?”

“He attacked me, Mistress High and Mighty. We need to leave—the librarian wants to rape me and if we’re in here after closing she’ll probably detain me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Sabia snapped, handing him her books so he could carry them for her. “What d’you mean, _he_ attacked _you?_ ”

“I mean—I walked in the door and he just _had_ to be leaving dinner, so he decided to prattle on at me and then try to curse me. I couldn’t have that, could I? So I retaliated.” They left the library. Sabia made sure they stayed in the shadows and took a little used route so no one would see them on friendly terms and report them to the Brennans, Lynchs, Hastings, or O’Briens.

“You retaliated and managed to _lose_ , dear, dear George. Clark Potter’s a fantastic dueler—I must give him credit for that. He probably knows more spells than you do.” They ducked under a tapestry and began walking down a long, winding, dark and narrow stairwell.

George shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s only my pride that’s smarting right now. Don’t you want to know what he said to me?”

Sabia shrugged.

“Fine. He likes you a fair bit,” George remarked.

“Why do you think?” Sabia asked immediately, startled.

“Because he stopped right in front of me, took out his wand, _faced_ off against me, and then told me that if I was here to ‘bitch Brennan out for a hapless mistake,’ than I could turn right back around and leave before he made me. So naturally, I said ‘Fuck off and mind your own bloody business, Potter’—really made him mad, that. So he hexed me, stupid git.” George leaned a little closer and Sabia could smell the mint on his breath. “How’s that for liking you, Bee?”

“I don’t really care,” Sabia said nonchalantly, halting in the darkness at the bottom of the steps. 

“Shut up,” George ordered. “You like him. Most girls like the blokes they lose their virginity to.”

Sabia tossed her head. “Not _me._ ”

“Shut up,” George said again, but this time he was so close she could eat the words from his mouth if she wanted to. 

Sabia leaned up and pressed her mouth to George’s, sliding her hands into his cloak and his robes and into his shirt. Her hands stayed pressed against his warm, dry skin as he pulled her closer around the waist. Sabia crushed her breasts against his chest and bumped her pelvis against his as they deepened the kiss.

A nasty, niggling thought tickled at the back of Sabia’s mind. _I’m cheating on Clark._

The thought made her break away because of its pure ridiculousness. She wasn’t dating Clark—therefore, she couldn’t be cheating on him. George stared down at her from lazy, half-lidded eyes. “Sabia,” he muttered, looking away.

“Yeah. Sorry,” she told him, taking her hands away and backing up against the wall. “Thank you so much, George. For everything…goodbye.”

George nodded. “If you need anything…”

“I’ll tell you,” she assured him, then watched forlornly as his back disappeared up a short flight of stairs that led to the Entrance Hall.

**.....**

**I seem to not be able to upload this entire huge chapter. Look for the second half of Part One tomorrow.**


	2. Part Two

**Sabia and Clark:  
Part II** 

**......**

**_Mid-February_ **

**_1959_ **

**_Seventh Year_ **

Sabia was beginning to haunt the library. She had no refuge in her dorm with the accusing and disdainful stares of her dorm mates, so she often found herself in the library when she had no other things to do. She hadn’t slept in a long while and she found herself curled up in the uncomfortable library chair, trying to take a nap before afternoon classes began again.

The sound of whispers invaded her sleep-heavy mind and she opened her eyes slows, not moving as she strained to hear what was going on.

“ _Theodore,”_ a girl with a Scottish accent giggled quietly. “ _Be good, now!”_

_“I’d rather be bad…very bad,”_ he murmured back. Sabia snapped her eyes shut as she heard a long kiss exchanged and the sounds of heavy breathing from both participants. There was only one Theodore in the school—and he was still dating Kathryn. Sabia continued to listen until Theodore and the girl who was _not_ Kathryn left, and then she relaxed back in her chair.

Sabia was incredibly startled when she actually saw her former friend in front of her, her blond hair shining and a socialite’s smile fixed firmly in its place. Kathryn walked right by Sabia without a word and waited by a shelf, tapping her foot and looking at her watch.

“Kathryn!” Sabia called before she could stop herself. Kathryn looked up and hesitated for just a moment before walking over to Sabia and asking what was the matter. She simply nodded her head when Sabia asked if she was waiting for Theodore. Quickly, nervously, Sabia told the other girl all that she had heard behind the hidden and dark stacks of the library.

Kathryn stared at her for a long, long moment. “You know what, Sabia?”

“What?” Sabia asked impatiently, waiting to see how Kathryn would take Theodore’s cheating. Theodore had never cheated on Sabia—at least not physically. 

“You are absolutely pathetic, that’s what! How dare you try to weasel your way back in? You’re _finished._ You have no more chances and I really do advise you to give up.” Kathryn tossed her head. “Honestly, I can’t help it if you want to _be_ me, but I’d prefer it if you left _my_ boyfriend out of it.”

“High and mighty now, are we?” Sabia asked mockingly.

“Either way, Sabia,” Kathryn added coldly, “I’m still ten times as pretty as you are. And in a few months, I’ll be ten times as rich as you will be. And right now, I’m with someone ten times better than anyone you could _ever_ find.” She turned and walked proudly away without a backward glance. A part of Sabia hardly cared, while the normal seventeen year old within her brought tears to her eyes with the pain from Kathryn’s comments. It all came down to that: being alone.

She jumped when she felt a hand on her head but felt a gentle hand clasp around the fingers holding her wand. It was Clark. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I’m fine,” Sabia grumbled, her tears gone. They had only been fleeting, thank Merlin.

“I think you’re pretty,” Clark said suddenly. 

“ _Pardon?_ ”

“I said, _I_ think you’re pretty.”

“I’m not pretty.”

“Not gorgeous like Lynch, no. But you’re nice-looking enough.”

“Reaaaaally,” Sabia said thoughtfully, drawing the word out. “I never thought you a charmer, Clark.”

He shrugged. “A charmer? I hadn’t considered it.”

Sabia paused. “Do…do you fancy me, Clark?”

He cocked his head to the side, regarding her. They hadn’t spoken to each other in months. In a swift movement, he leaned in and kissed her cheek, running a hand through her hair and stepping away. 

“Yes,” he said quietly, actually giving her a little bow before taking a seat next to her.

“What?” Sabia asked, fighting the urge to rub her cheek where his lips had brushed her skin. She felt strange—giddy all over. 

“No secrets,” Clark said, spreading his hands and regarding her levelly. “Now. Are you pregnant?”

“That’s all anyone cares about anymore,” Sabia said sullenly, crossing her arms over her chest. “Whether they’re going to have to pay for a baby. No, I’m not pregnant, and thank _Merlin._ ”

“That’s a relief,” Clark said, “because as undoubtedly sweet as you are, I’d hate to have to marry you _now_.”

“Why, thank you for that _wonderful_ insinuation about my character. You’re spot on actually. Sabia—”

“Means sweet. I know.”

Sabia peered keenly at him, unsettled. “How do—I don’t want to know.”

“Meaningless trivia,” he explained. “Annamarie’s aunt is Irish as speaks fluent Gaelic. Annamarie mentioned it once when she was insulting you.”

“How _sweet_ of _her_ ,” Sabia rejoined scathingly. 

“Just a fact,” Clark informed her. “Are you well?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Sabia said suspiciously. “And you?”

“Doing very well. Very well, indeed. How are those Slytherins?”

For the briefest of times, Sabia had forgotten that they were from opposite sides of the tracks. She was a Slytherin and he was Gryffindor. This was utterly treasonous to her house and her blood, utterly wrong, and utterly delicious. Sabia leaned forward flirtatiously. “As well as the Gryffindors, I suppose.” She kept her voice flippant and tossed her head so her hair fell down about her shoulders.

“Suddenly coquettish, are we?” he mused, his eyes lighting up at the challenge. “What are you, Anne Boleyn reincarnated?”

“He reads!” Sabia exclaimed, delighted. “If I’m Anne Boleyn, then who might you be, Clark?”

“Surely not Henry VIII,” Clark said immediately. “I’m hardly stupid enough to behead you because I can’t get my Muggle head about witches—hardly George, for I’ve never had a brotherly thought for you in my life…perhaps I’m Thomas Wyatt to your Anne.”

“I’m impressed,” Sabia said truthfully. “Most only remember the witch of the time—not those who surrounded her. Have you read anything by Wyatt?”

“I’m hardly that interested,” Clark said.

“Neither have I,” Sabia told him. “It’s too much effort to smuggle the book into my house…” She trailed off—it was no longer her house.

“You can do whatever you wish, now, as several have pointed out to me,” Clark said, watching her with a guarded gaze. 

“Pointed out to you?”

“Jack and Annamarie. They told me to…go for it, now that you’re blessedly free of pure conventions. Rather bitterly, they told me—resentfully, actually. So here I am. Going for it.”

“Resentfully, was it?” Sabia asked.

“We’re definitely meeting up this weekend.” Clark completely evaded her questions. Sabia decided to press him some other time.

“Reaaaaally,” Sabia said again.

“Really.”

“Why?”

He looked startled. “What?”

“Why are we meeting up?”

He stared at her, baffled, as if he had not known she would be curious. “I…”

“We’ll have to see,” Sabia told him, looking mock-worried. She picked up all of her books and began to put them in her bag. She soon finished and glanced up at him; he was staring at the table.

“This isn’t just because we had sex, you know,” he said suddenly. Sabia was surprised but she merely hefted her bag onto her back and said nothing.

“Alright,” she sighed.

“Alright, we’ll meet?” he asked coolly, as if trying to seem uncaring.

“Oh no, for that we’ll still have to see,” Sabia teased, and then left the library, much happier than she had been in months.

**……**

**_Late March_ **

**_1959_ **

**_Seventh Year_ **

They did go out that weekend, and the weekend after that—it was several weekends later that Sabia and Clark found themselves again in bed in a room above the Hog’s Head, simply lit with firelight and candles to ward away the chill of the March afternoon. Sabia collapsed next to Clark, gasping and rubbing her face against the cool pillowcase. She moaned and arched her back when Clark turned on his side and slid his far hand into the small of her back. She turned her face so she could see him and he pushed her hair from her face with his free hand.

“Nice?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“Shut up,” she whispered, entwining her legs with his. “You can bloody well tell if it was nice or not.” She rubbed her hand over the sweaty skin on his chest, feeling his heart race as he calmed down. He was gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous…all lean beneath sweaty golden skin in the firelight. His hair fell into his eyes and she brushed it away, placing her hand on the back of his neck and pulling herself up so she could kiss him. His hands traveled up her back and rested just under her shoulder blades. Sabia opened her legs and rubbed against him, drawing a strangled sound from the back of his throat. There was something so primal about this, something so intense and private. She tilted her head back in invitation and he kissed her neck lightly. She could tell he would be ready again in a moment.

“Uhn…this is wrong on so many levels,” she told him, her eyes half shut.

“Don’t say that,” he said into her neck. “I like it. At least this time you…”

She could feel the heat from his blush. “This time I what?”

There was a pause as he moved his hand over her thigh and to the soft inner skin; his large fingers stroked the juncture of her thigh and her hip before moving deeper. Sabia’s mouth dropped open at the new sensation and she heard, with a detached sort of perception, a keening sound that left her own throat. She felt him hard and ready against her thigh and sensed when his lips came up to her ear. 

“Came,” he said heatedly in her ear. “At that party I could tell you never came.”

Sabia wanted to tell him that she couldn’t really remember anything from that night except the pain when she lost her virginity, but she couldn’t bring herself to talk over his caresses. 

“Do you like this?” he asked gently, biting down on her earlobe.

Sabia nodded jerkily, biting her lip to keep from crying out again. She was sure someone would hear in the adjacent room. The Hog’s Head was probably one of the worst places to see each other, but it was also the most unlikely and hidden. 

“Good,” he murmured, slowly drawing his hand away and resting it on her leg. He put his head down on her chest and she slid her hands up and down his back. 

“What? I don’t get to come, now?” 

Clark laughed. “No. Later. You _really_ liked it?”

“Is there a problem?” Sabia asked, shuddering as he kissed the upper swell of her breast. “You seem to think I wouldn’t.” She opened her eyes and looked down. “Who exactly have you been sleeping with, Clark?”

He mumbled something into her chest. At her cold silence, he said louder, “Annamarie.”

“You’re shagging your best friend?” Sabia exclaimed, sitting up so that his head was in her naked lap, his nose nuzzling into her stomach. 

“I was,” he said quietly, putting his hands on the bed so he could push himself up to meet her eyes. “Last summer. In September. Not after that.”

“I never knew she fancied you,” Sabia said faintly, thinking about Annamarie Denver’s huge chest and pretty eyes. Sabia paused in her train of thought—she had to push this insecurity aside. She hated to feel less than confident.

“We’re better as friends. We just…burned out. This isn’t exactly pillow talk, Sabia.”

“And she didn’t like that?” Sabia asked, keeping her voice calm and her blush nonexistent. “The…your…”

“Straight shagging. That’s all she wanted, whether it felt good for her or not.” Clark refused to meet her eyes.

“ _I_ like it,” Sabia told him, “I like it a great deal actually. How could someone dating you not…” She stopped herself, not sure if she had just treaded on guarded territory. _Were_ they dating? Every time they secretly met up in Hogsmeade on the weekly visits they ended up in bed. They spent six hours a week together, a third of that was spent on sex. They hardly spoke within the castle. Was that dating?

“Go on,” Clark said warmly.

“I don’t remember,” she replied vaguely, staring off into space and thinking.

“I really, really, really fancy you, Sabia,” Clark said gently, grinning as he leaned in to kiss her.

“Do you?” Her mouth opened in a smile when he kissed her and Sabia spread her legs as he rose up and into her.

“ _Yes_ …” he whispered.

**……**

**_Mid-August_ **

**_1959_ **

“Bee! Are you coming down?”

“Shut up a minute! I’m almost done!”

Sabia clipped her hair up, snatched up a handbag, and raced down the stairs with a cloud of perfume trailing behind her. She skidded to a stop in her brother’s kitchen and steadied herself against a table. George, sitting at the table, gave her an irritable look. 

“Watch it. You have to be careful. And eat something.”

“You’re not my guardian or anything, George,” Sabia said impishly, moving carefully and helping herself to some of the toast and butter that was resting on a plate in the center of the table. After finishing that, she ate a cup of raspberry yogurt and polished off two carrots. “Happy?”

It had taken her fifteen minutes to eat. George glanced at his watch. “Very. I have to go. Have fun.”

“I wish you could come,” Sabia said wistfully, her head resting on her folded elbows. She got up to hug him and he pulled her close. When she moved to leave his embrace, he caught the hem of her sundress and pulled her back, curling his arm underneath it, around her bare thighs. 

“Someone would see, and then I’d be as penniless as you.”

“I’m not _penniless,_ ” Sabia said, even though she was after giving back to George almost all of the money he had lent her.

“True,” he conceded. “Not all assets are in coin.” He shot a meaningful look towards her chest, just as Cara, Sabia’s sister-in-law, entered the sunny kitchen with baby Anna on her hip. She handed the baby to Sabia, who broke away from George to cradle the small form to her chest. She inhaled the sweet baby powder scent of her sparse hair and shut her eyes.

“You have to get going if you want to meet Bryan. Otherwise you’ll miss the show,” Cara said, coming up to Sabia and stroking the baby’s head. 

Sabia kissed Anna’s head and smiled up at Cara, feeling George’s gaze warm on her backside. She kicked her foot backwards and was rewarded with his yelp. She handed Anna back to Cara and then smiled. “Alright…I’m going. I’ll walk you out on my way,” she said to George.

He followed her through the kitchen and over to the opposite end of the large house, where the Floo was located. Before George left, he turned towards her and caught her wrist up tightly. “Marry me.”

Sabia laughed. “Shut up, George.”

He was serious. “Please?”

“No!” she said good-naturedly. “George, I’m not—”

“I’m sorry, Bee.”

“What? George, what are you—”

“Are you sure you don’t want to marry me?”

“Yes—”

“Then tell him.” He threw green powder into the flames and left with a regretful look back at her.

“Honestly,” Sabia muttered, “he comes to stay for the night and ends up ordering me around and being completely cryptic.” She cried out her destination into the emerald flames and in a moment was stumbling out of the fireplace in the _Leaky Cauldron._ Bryan was waiting—they were going to go see a show in Muggle London that Cara’s parents had recommended. Because it was only supposed to be them, she was quite surprised to see another man with her brother.

It was Clark.

She hadn’t seen him in a while. 

The last time Sabia and Clark had spoken he had blasted her across their room in the Hog’s Head and stalked away. Sabia was suddenly having a hard time forgetting the way his face had looked, the way he had talked to her…she had treated him horribly. 

It was hard to remember what they had argued about. Clark had…wanted to see her in the castle and she had insulted him—told him no—told him to get away. They had said things to each other that Sabia would never even say to her worst enemy.

Wasn’t Clark her worst enemy?

She swallowed hard. She hadn’t eaten for a day or two afterwards until she had started to hurl up her insides and then…that had been the middle of July…

“What are you doing here?” she asked quietly, sinking into the empty chair. Bryan clapped her on the shoulder, kissed her on the head, and left. “Bryan!” she called after him, but he simply held up a hand and his large bulk disappeared into the blinding sun outside.

“Did he ask you to come here?” Sabia asked, her voice slightly high-pitched.

“Not him,” Clark muttered. “Your...your friend—Kathryn’s uncle—”

“ _George?_ ” Sabia gasped, starting to rise from her chair. She was going to kill him— _kill him_!

“Look—you—I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t mean to hurt you or curse you like I did and I _am_ sorry, but I have enough problems right now without—”

“What did George tell you?” Sabia asked.

“He said to meet Bryan. That was all. The most awkward ten minutes of my life, this just was. Besides the three I spent talking to George O’Brien. Talking to George O’Brien,” he repeated, as if he didn’t believe it. “I’ve sunk to a new low…”

“He’s not so bad,” Sabia said defensively. “He’s really helped me—”

“After he found out I’d already fucked you so he could too without taking your virginity? Yes, I’m sure he’s been _very_ helpful.”

“Clark.”

He shut up. 

“You have no idea what George has done for me. None. Don’t put him down because it makes you feel—”

“He hasn’t left his family for you, has he?”

Sabia stared at him. “What…?”

“If George is such a wonderful friend, then why hasn’t he left his family and taken you in?”

“It’s not so simple,” Sabia began.

“I would.”

“You would _not_ leave your family for a girl,” Sabia scoffed.

“If they were like the O’Briens I would,” Clark rejoined. “Sabia—I’m so sick of this. Are you pregnant?”

“Yes!” Sabia snapped. “How _did_ you guess?”

“I don’t know, genius, maybe it’s because you’re looking a little chubbier than you normally do—or maybe it’s because _George O’Brien_ contacted me and told me to meet _your_ brother, who sat there and told me that I had better be as honorable as everyone says—and maybe it’s because you just _look_ pregnant!”

“It’s not yours!”

“It bloody well is!” Clark roared, standing up and slamming his hands down onto the table. People looked over. Sabia snapped at them to mind their own business and they all turned away.

“Lower your voice and sit down,” Sabia hissed, aware of the still avidly listening customers of the pub.

Clark dropped into his chair. Sabia opened her mouth and Clark cut her off. “Don’t talk.” He reached into his pocket and threw a small black box onto the table. “Open it.”

She did. It was a classic diamond ring, set in gold—not too large, not too small. Almost perfect. Very Clark.

“What about it?” 

“You’re pregnant. It’s mine. What do you think it is, dear?”

“I just said it’s not yours.”

“Really? Whose is it, then?”

Sabia flushed, casting about for an answer. 

“You’re not a slag, Sabia. I don’t think you’re one to sleep around and get pregnant.”

“Clark, I’m not really into pity marriage. I can do this by myself.”

Clark stared at her for a moment. “Come with me.”

She considered leaving the ring on the table. Clark looked back at her over his shoulder as he got up.

“Bring the ring.”

**……**

They got out in Venice Court. There was a large seemingly out of place house standing in between numbers twenty and twenty-two: twenty-and-two-tenths. Sabia herself lived in an all magical neighborhood in Berkshire. She couldn’t easily comprehend living right next door to Muggles. 

Clark led her through the front door. “Mum? Dad?” he called, peeking into the two rooms that were on each side of the foyer. They seemed to be alone. Clark took her into a sitting room and pushed her down on a plush couch, taking the cushion next to her. 

 

“Is it mine?”

“No.”

He stared at her levelly. “Is it mine?”

Sabia rolled her eyes. “I just said no.”

He paused for just a second. “Alright. How far are you along?”

“Over four months gone,” she said irritably.

“Is it mine?”

“Wha—are you deaf?”

“Yes,” Clark said thoughtfully. He leaned in and kissed her. “Still not mine? Back in March?”

“Shit,” she swore quietly. “I forgot you can count.”

“Are you going to marry me?”

“No…”

“I’m not just marrying you because you’re pregnant.”

“You’re not marrying me at all,” Sabia pointed out dryly. 

Clark gave her a reproachful look and continued. “It’d be fun.”

“Fun? _Fun?_ ” Sabia cried, pulling back from him. “Are you bloody serious?”

“Really. I am. Is it mine?”

“You just figured out that it is,” Sabia groused, kicking her shoes off and curling her legs underneath her so she could lean back against the soft back of the couch. 

“You really needed to hide that from me?”

Sabia met his eyes and licked her lips, trying to swallow over the horrible, sudden lump in her throat. This all hurt—a lot. Unexpectedly, Clark leaned towards her, gripping the loose fabric of her dress around her stomach and pulling it tight, revealing the bulge she had tried to keep hidden. He put his hand on her belly and looked up at her. 

“No,” she whispered. 

“I love you,” he said suddenly.

Sabia looked away. “No.”

“Stop saying no!” Clark burst out, recoiling from her. “Stop saying no just because you’re scared! We could sit here for ages just because one of us is too scared to say it but I’m not, because you’re not going to hurt me more that I’ve hurt you. If I don’t love you than I really, really, really love me, and you’re pregnant and it’s mine…it’s _mine_ …do you know what that means?”

“N—”

“Don’t say _no!_ ”

“Fine.” Sabia crossed her arms stubbornly and tried to get off the couch. After a moment Clark moved away from her with a sound of disgust and she got up, shoving her feet into her shoes and rushing from the pretty sitting room. She made sure to slam the door on her way out and paused on his front step. What had they—a taxi. They had gotten here in a taxi.

How the bloody hell was she supposed to get one of those?

With no other option, she stuck out her wand hand and staggered back as an earsplitting bang almost burst her eardrums. She dug into the concealed pocket she had and pulled out just enough fare so she could get a ride to Bryan’s house. White-knuckled, she held onto one of the attached rails as the bus banged from place to place so that she could hardly stay in her chair. 

She disembarked at her house, thanked the driver, and then walked up the lane to the front door. She let herself in with her key and shut the door, leaning against it. Steeling herself, she made her way to the kitchen and stopped dead when she saw Bryan sitting with Cara and Anna.

“Where’s Hestia?” she asked calmly.

“Sabs—”

“Don’t call me that!” Sabia shouted, startling Anna into a wail. She could hardly bring herself to care and felt bad about that. “Where’s Hestia?”

“Upstairs,” Cara murmured, trying to calm Anna down. She and Bryan had been talking—probably about Sabia. Sabia left them and climbed the stairs slowly, going over to where Hestia’s cage was. She got a piece of parchment from the desk and blindly wrote out a note to George, asking him to come over later.

She attached it to Hestia’s leg and let her fly out the window, then went to her room to sleep.

**……**

She woke up when George shook her shoulder. She turned over, glanced at clock, and suppressed a groan. She had been sleeping for only half an hour. How fast could Hestia fly, for Circe’s sake?

“Strange note.”

“Will you marry me?” she asked, sitting up and pushing her hair to the side. Her dress was trapped under her and pulled tight against her body—her pregnant stomach was easily visible. 

He looked shocked. His dark hair fell into his blue eyes, covering his forehead. Sabia paused…George always told her he would be there, that he would do anything—Clark had put the doubt in her mind. Would he really do anything?”

“George?”

“I…”

“You always ask me. Will you really?”

“Sabia…”

Clark was right. Sabia covered her eyes. “Oh, no…I’m so stupid. I’m mad—George—why did you…why did you ask Clark to meet me?”

George looked down. “You can’t do this by yourself.”

Sabia cocked her head to the side. “What?”

“You need someone to help you.”

“That’s why I’m asking—”

“My wedding’s in a year,” George blurted out, moving away from her just the slightest bit. Only then did Sabia notice that he was sitting on the edge of her mattress.

“Who?” Sabia said softly, dismayed. 

“Andromeda Black.”

“You don’t even _like_ her!”

George didn’t say anything.

“Marry _me!_ ” Sabia said passionately. “You can…you can marry me.”

“My family—”

“ _Forget_ your family! They’re all—bigoted…please, George. You always ask me. You asked me just this morning. We can go live anywhere—with Muggles, with—”

“ _Muggles_ _?_ Why on earth would you want to live with Muggles?”

Sabia stopped talking just then. For the past several months she had forgotten just who George was. They had never once touched on the subject of Muggles until just now, just this moment. George was just like the rest of them. He was—the only reason he hadn’t shunned her was because Clark was still—though not a pureblood—a wizard.

“They’re—they’re people…”

George winced. “I know! I just…I’m not comfortable.”

“Andromeda Black?” Sabia asked again, just confirming. Andromeda was going to be a Seventh year Slytherin in September.

“In a year.”

“I hate you.”

George tapped her on the head. “No, you don’t.”

Sabia tried not to smile. “I do.”

“How’s Clark?” George asked, skillfully changing the subject.“Bloody fine. He said you wouldn’t.”

George was taken aback. “I wouldn’t what?”

“He said you wouldn’t leave your family for me. He said if you were ever intending to, you would have done it already.” Sabia made it a point to keep her eyes on her bedspread and she picked at it.

“You’re for Clark,” George sighed. “That’s it. You’re his. You don’t—you don’t even see it. You won’t admit it.”

Sabia finally met his earnest eyes, her lips trembling. “Let’s go downstairs, George. You can say goodbye.”

“Sabs—”

“Don’t _call_ me that!”

“Fine. _Bee_ —”

“Downstairs,” she said tersely, easing herself off the bed. She straightened her dress as they descended and stopped dead when she walked into the kitchen and saw Anna sitting with Bryan and another person—Clark.

The boy never quit.

“I didn’t do this,” George said immediately, obviously knowing that she was going to accuse him of it. 

“We’ll leave you alone,” Bryan said, putting his hand under Anna’s elbow and pulling her to her feet. George put his hand on the small of Sabia’s back and kissed her cheek, then walked through the back hallways so he could leave.

“You don’t need to stay,” Sabia said when they were finally alone. “You can go.” She turned to go back upstairs.

“You’re going to end up all alone.”

Sabia turned on her toes. “Pardon?”

He was lounging in the chair as if he owned it. “You’re going to end up with no one.”

She put her hand to her stomach in protest.

“He’ll hate you. He’ll hate you because you’re never going let him know me—”

“You have no obligation to know—”

“I’m not obligated.”

Sabia’s mouth dropped open. “Of _course_ you feel like you’re responsible—how can you say that you don’t? All this has been about you being responsible for me be—”

“Doesn’t it occur to you that you’re pregnant with _my_ baby? You act like…as if I don’t…I want it, Sabia.” He got up and stalked over to her, pulling her gently down onto the bottom step. His hand cradled her belly as she studiously looked away. “It’s…you’re pregnant…it’s going to be my kid—I—I _like_ kids.”

Sabia tried to keep her back straight but inch by inch she yielded until he curled his hand behind her neck and pulled her head down to his shoulder. He leaned down and kissed her neck, tightening his hand around her thickened waist.

“It’s not easy,” she said softly, breathing out over his neck. 

He pulled her tighter in answer. “I really, really fancy you, Brennan.”

She giggled quietly, covering her mouth and surreptitiously wiping her eyes. In a flash he had taken her hand and she suddenly felt something cold around the fourth finger on her left hand. She looked down and the ring was on her finger.

“Clark—” 

“Please,” he said into her ear.

She turned her head so she could lock her eyes on his. “Alright.”

“Alright?”

She was too tired to say anything but yes—she _wanted_ Clark…she had never noticed how much you learned about someone during pillow talk—Clark was…He pulled her up and kissed her, his hand still on her stomach.

Suddenly Cara began to cry in her cradle over in the kitchen. 

“I hate babies,” Clark muttered into her mouth, smiling. 

  **.......**


	3. Part Three

**This part focuses on two defining moments in Clark and Sabia’s lives (New Year’s in 1959 and their motivation for their fixation on the Malfoys).**

**Clark and Sabia**

**Part III**

**……**

**_1959_ **

**_New Year’s_ **

On New Year’s Eve Day of that year, Clark found himself escorting Sabia into the Ministry and into their dim, quiet rooms. She kept her cloak closed over her pregnant belly and moved slowly, sitting down as he went over to the desk on the right side of the wall. The Research Room in the Department of Mysteries was normally filled with D.O.M employees checking on facts and pulling files, but on this particular day it was empty. It was the lunch hour and most people were visiting the Café on the highest floor of the building. 

“I don’t feel right about this, Clark,” Sabia said, looking around nervously. Clark glanced at her and felt a rush of compassion as she winced and tried to make herself comfortable in the hard chair. He put a cushioning charm on it and caught her hand up, pressing a kiss to the palm in a silent apology for dragging her here today. She wasn’t due for another two weeks and she had said that she was perfectly fine stopping by on her way back from her check up at St. Mungo’s.

Clark used his wand and tapped on the letters on the desk, burned into the wood and magically sealed. His wandtip glowed—it had been accepted and his magical signatures were all in order. A section of the wood rose up from the desk and became a leather binder. Clark opened it and began flicking through index cards with his wand, searching for the right one.

He finally found what he needed and stared at the index card. “ _Accio_ _File MA7304!”_ He sat down next to Sabia to wait—files took at least five minutes on a day when hardly anyone was in the room. He touched her hair and she smiled.

“I can’t believe I’m in here,” she said reverently.

“That’s rich,” Clark said, laughing. “You very well would’ve gotten your own bloody admission.”

Sabia stuck her tongue out at him. “Oh, shut up, Clark. No, seriously—if your father hadn’t…”

“I know,” Clark filled in for her. Clark’s father had arranged for him to have this job—preliminary research into Dark families (their activities, histories, and most current actions)—along with Sabia. It was unusual for someone just out of school to already be working within the Department of Mysteries, but Clark’s father was the Head of the Department and could therefore hire whomever he chose. 

The file was suddenly in Clark’s hands. Clark breathed a sigh of relief—he always did when he figured out something about the Malfoys. He opened the file, grabbed a quill, and marked down on a specific sheet that Tiberius Malfoy had been found with his six-year-old son Lucius in Knockturn Alley, illegally purchasing dragon’s blood. He sent the file back down to its cabinet and waited for another five minutes until the binder recessed back into the desk—it would not disappear if the file had been place in the wrong section or had not reached the cabinets at all. 

“We can go, Bee,” he said, tapping on the wooden desk and locking it until the next authorized person came along. He helped his wife up and placed his hand on the small of her back, discreetly breathing in the smell of her perfumed hair. He immediately sneezed.

In the lift Sabia glanced up at him. “How many times had I told you not to sniff my hair?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

“How many times have I told you not to put that stuff in it,” he asked in a high falsetto. “Pretty, though.” Sabia pinched his side just as the head of the Depertment of Magical Transportation entered the lift. Clark winced and greeted him, his words merging with Sabia’s. She was smiling serenely as if she had not just dug her nails mercilessly into his flesh.

They got out at the atrium. Clark pinched her arm in retaliation and she frowned.

“ _Ouch._ You know, that’s probably not good for the baby.” 

Clark tapped her on the head. “You can’t fool me, twit. Come on.” Sabia stopped by the Fountain of the Magical Brethren and let him continue on to the desk at the end of the hall. He spoke to the guard for a moment and then came back to Sabia. “Just had to have him tell my father I came. Why did you stop?”

Sabia nodded over at the other end of the hall. Clark had not noticed Victoria Hastings and her husband standing with two people she didn’t recognize near the guard desk.

“Ah,” Clark said. Then, grinning mischievously, he took her arm dragged her (gently) over to the quartet of people. “Hello, Mrs. Hastings. Mr. Hastings.”

Theodore Hastings the Elder looked at Clark, then at Sabia. His lip curled. “Mr. and Mrs. Potter,” he said shortly. Victoria said nothing, simply glaring at Sabia’s pregnant stomach as if she would curse the unborn baby. Clark stepped forward a little, breaking Mrs. Hasting’s gaze. 

“We haven’t seen either Kathryn or Theodore in a long while. How are they? Any plans to extend the family tree yet?” Clark knew they had married the day after Hogwarts let out. Their first responsibility was to create a baby to further the line of blood. 

“Not just yet,” Victoria said, straightening her back and giving Clark a glare that would have cowed the Minister of Magic. “They’ve the good sense to _wait_ ,” she added cuttingly, but her cheeks were covered in two spots of color. Clark bid them goodbye and pulled a mute Sabia with him. She didn’t speak until they were back home, having used the specialized portkey Clark’s father had gotten for them.

“That was wrong,” she said archly. “Rubbing it in.”

“Funny, as well,” Clark told her, hanging both their cloaks up. “They’re probably contacting the young and happy Hastings each day to find out whether Kathryn’s carrying and here _you_ are—”

“Pregnant before we got married,” Sabia put in, waddling into the kitchen. Clark watched her, amused. She was incredibly self-conscious about her walk, so he was always careful not to say a word about it, but just now he couldn’t hold himself in.

“They’re all jittery because Kathryn’s not as big as a walrus and she’s not walking like a duck and _you_ are, plus you’re married to someone they hate who’s got just about the same amount of money in a trust fund—”

He had entered the kitchen behind her and saw that she was sitting on one of the plush, comfortable chairs, glaring at him. “Pardon—but did you just imply that I’m fat?”

“Fat, pregnant, and very happy.”

“Who says I’m happy?”

“ _I’m_ happy.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, as she had earlier. “You’re sleeping on the couch tonight, so yes, _I’m_ happy.”

“Sabia!” he said worriedly, thinking of the uncomfortable couch in their sitting room. They had bought the house they day after they married and were still looking for a proper couch. Sabia was so picky about couches (and Clark did not want to risk _really_ angering her when she was pregnant) that they hadn’t found one since September.

“Just a little joke at your expense,” she murmured. Clark grinned at her widely and then heard the unmistakable voice of his father echoing throughout the house. Rolling his eyes, he went into the sitting room and saw his father’s head in the fire. Jack Potter’s hair was dark, shot through with silver and duller gray strands. He smiled at the pair of them, his eyes distracted behind his glasses.

“Alright, Sabia? Baby not bothering you?”

Sabia said she was fine. Pleasantries over, Jack turned to Clark. “Clark, we need you down here.”

“What, at the Ministry?”

“Of course,” Jack snapped. “We’ve gotten a breakthrough. Sabia—I know you shouldn’t be coming, so don’t worry. I’ll have Clark fill you in when he gets back.”

“Dad,” Clark began.

“ _Now._ ” Jack’s head disappeared. Clark swore at the fire, feeling petty as he mocked his father. He told Sabia he would be back soon and then left for the Ministry, stumbling out of one of the fireplaces and greeting Joseph, the guard at the desk. He continued down to the Department of Mysteries and gave his security pass to the magical identification detector. He was able to go through and enter the Research Room.

It was bustling with activity. Clark was presented with a pile of papers and told to file the ones he deemed important in the appropriate files. As he began to work, he thought of Sabia’s pregnant belly and smiled as he sent reports about illegal activities down to the filing cabinets.

**……**

Around three o’clock, Clark raised his bleary eyes from his desk and squinted. He had fallen asleep. Tons of people were still racing around—Clark still had no idea what was going on. He thought about asking someone but was interrupted by a sharp voice behind him. 

“Clark! Where are the papers on the Malfoy interviews?”

Clark’s heart sank. He had forgotten them at his house. He nodded to the irate man whose name had escaped him and went over to the fire when he saw it was clear. He stuck his head in and called out the name of his house.

“What’s this, then?” Sabia asked, eating from a carton of ice cream and staring at him.

“Are the papers on Lucifer and Tiberius Malfoy in the study, love?”

She sighed, reached for her wand, and summoned them. Within seconds they were in her hands. She started to hand them to him in the fire and then stopped. “Damn!”

He sighed. “What now?” 

“They can’t be sent through the fire, doofus. They need to give in person or the hex will activate. Here, I’ll come there.”

“Sabia,” Clark started warningly.

“Shut up. I’ve got the portkey and I’ll be right there.”

Clark tried to tell her to stop again but she extinguished the fire and he went back to his desk, his knees aching. Within ten minutes Sabia had walked into the crowded room, greeting several people as she passed them and finally setting the papers down by Clark. 

“What is going _on?_ ” she asked him, staring around the room with wide eyes. It was seldom this busy.

“I have no idea,” Clark told her. “I haven’t seen my dad and everyone’s too busy to tell me what’s happening. I’ve simply filed some things, and then some more things…and I…we need a bloody secretary, that’s one!”

“She better be old,” Sabia muttered. 

“I’d still have her, because you are just _so_ unsatisfying,” Clark teased, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He opened his mouth to say something else. Sabia, seeing this, cut him off with a soft kiss. 

“You didn’t say that all those nights in the Hog’s Head,” she breathed in his ear, pulling back and to look him in the eye. 

Clark raised an eyebrow, his heart pounding at the look on her face. Anyone could _see._ “Sabia—you’re pregnant. Don’t be sexy.”

She opened her mouth in indignation. “Clark Potter—”

Moira Baggs slapped Clark on the back of the head with the folder she was holding. Clark yelped and felt the back of his head, but everything was perfectly fine. “Hey!”

Sabia giggled as Moira pursed her lips, put her hand over her mouth, and cocked her head to side, widening her eyes in an expression of contrition. “So sorry! I didn’t mean to hit you after you subsidized the female next to you! It just…happened!”

Clark made a face at her. “Yeah. Such an accident. Bugger off, Moira.”

She blew them a kiss and disappeared behind one of the shelves chock full of books. Clark rubbed his eyes. “Damn. Stupid dark families…so much trouble. You know, my dad implied that we were going to get a more specific assignment.”

Sabia furrowed her brow. “That’s nice. Actually that reminds me. Clark, when I was coming in I saw Lucifer Malfoy at the door. He looked like he was…waiting for me, and after all these rumors about the Malfoys, I thought….”

Clark froze, then looked down at her belly, immediately realizing that something was dreadfully wrong. “What? Sabia, you have to get—”

The building shook.

Clark was up in a flash, yelling at Sabia to stay put. He saw her wide eyes staring back at him before someone ran in front of his vision. He couldn’t find his father anywhere. With another look back at Sabia, he angrily jumped on top a chair and fired sparks into the air. He yelled for quiet, scanning the room for anyone who had a position of authority. There was no one.

“SHUT UP!” he bellowed, shooting red sparks into the air again, taking the burden onto himself. The room went completely still, but the earth began to shake again. “DO NOT LEAVE THIS ROOM! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? DO NOT LEAVE THIS ROOM WITHOUT PERMISSION!”

Against his orders, someone opened the door. A loud series of shrieks and yells tore through the air. Clark could see flashes of brightly colored light. “SHUT THE DOOR!”

_Sabia_ _._

It shut with a slam. Somebody sealed and locked it, preventing anyone from outside from getting inside. 

“Now. Women first—out through the floo.” He looked over at Sabia, who was deathly pale. She couldn’t floo anywhere, not while pregnant. Her portkey would not work anywhere but the atrium. She shook her head grimly at Clark. Somebody pointed at her. 

“Let her go first,” Jim Vance said quietly.

“I can’t,” she told them. “It’ll hurt the baby.”

“Someone will hold you steady. You have to get out, Mrs. Potter.”

She stared at him levelly. “You don’t understand, Mr. Vance. Perhaps I could have gone ten minutes earlier when you were all stampeding like startled cattle, but now my water’s broke and I’ve gone into labor, so it’s out of the question for me to use the fireplace. Now please, women first.” She motioned gracefully to the fireplace.

Clark stared at her, his mouth opening and closing like a fish’s. Jim Vance edged a little closer and beckoned Clark down. “I’ll take over,” he whispered. “Go on.”

Clark jumped down and let Jim take his place, ignoring shocked looks as he pushed through the crowd to find Sabia. She was biting her lip—she almost looked puzzled, as if she had no idea what was happening. She smiled up at him, a blank smile that reminded Clark of all those days when she was talking to some politician’s child at Hogwarts and was trying to stay awake. _She’s barmy,_ he realized suddenly.

“Bee—how do you feel? We need to get to St. Mungo’s—”

That was no longer an option. The fireplace had been sealed off, one of the women who had tried to go explained to everyone. She was trembling. Clark recognized her as a woman who had three children, all under the age of eight. Her name was Marla—her surname completely escaped Clark.

Jim barked out a couple orders at the people, most of whom were beginning to panic. Someone tried unsealing the door and then tried to open it—nothing happened; they were effectively locked in the tiny Research Room, the hub of the Department of Mysteries. Clark wanted to laugh hysterically, but he could only let out a hacking kind of cough when Jim tapped him on the shoulder.

“Sorry about that, in the beginning. It’s been a while since the Ministry’s been attacked. I froze. Don’t worry, Egan’s in charge and I’m going to help you.”

“Help me?” Clark squeaked.

Jim nodded. “Yes. I’ll help you. Deliver the baby. My wife was a midwife—I saw her deliver tons of babies.” He caught sight of the woman standing a few feet to the side. “Moira can help—”

 “I don’t think so,” she said quietly. “Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m good with babies. They hate me.” 

“Nonsense,” Jim scoffed, putting his hand on her shoulder. Clark saw the look she gave him and turned away—Jim Vance was twelve years Moira’s senior, a widower with a son he adored. His hair was still dark glossy brown at the age of thirty-five, with no gray hairs to betray the stress of his life. Jim put a hand on Moira’s shoulder and led her to Sabia, who was getting paler and paler.

“Breathe,” Clark whispered.

**……**

**_1961_ **

**_The Malfoys_ **

For the next six months the Ministry tried to rebuild the destroyed atrium and to put faith back into the British Wizarding world. No one person knew why the Ministry had been attacked: Clark and Sabia told not a soul of their suspicions. They had heard the rumors about the upcoming assignments and suddenly knew what had happened. Clark and Sabia were supposedly slotted to be working on the Malfoys. When his father asked, a month after the attack on the Ministry, Clark said “Maybe later” without asking Sabia. 

The Malfoys knew, he realized, and they had sent people to kill off the Potter line. It was bad blood: Clark’s grandfather had killed Lucifer Malfoy in the war against Grindelwald. The Malfoys and the Potters would never get on again.

This was why, in early September, both Clark and Sabia took a hiatus from work when they found out Sabia was pregnant again. Clark simply said that he needed a break, not that he was afraid to leave Sabia and James alone. Clark often found himself down at the pub in town over the next several months. He continued to visit Gil the barman and the hapless Muggles past Christmas, past James’s first birthday, past the year’s anniversary of the attack on the Ministry, and up until the evening in early February when he came home and saw George O’Brien at his kitchen table with Sabia.

Clark, incredibly glad that he was still sober, looked pointedly at his wife before glaring at George. “Could you please—”

“Already done,” George said hastily, jumping up and going into the other room. Clark shut the door to the corridor firmly after him. Purebloods were trained from birth to know when to excuse themselves and then cunningly eavesdrop. 

“Clark—”

“Hold on.” He observed her carefully. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she had dark shadows underneath from lack of sleep. Her face was fuller than normal, her slightly chubby arms revealed by the long, short-sleeved dress she wore. She did not look mussed or touched in an improper way. Somehow, Clark still did not trust her, pregnant as she was, with George.

“ _Clark._ ”

The word was filled with such a plea for faith in her love and fidelity that Clark ached. His eyes then slid down to her very pregnant belly and he felt hot shame all over his body. Sabia would never….

“I don’t give a damn why he’s here,” Clark said quietly, “but I want him gone soon.”

Sabia raised her thin eyebrows. “Oh, really? Are you going to make him leave?”

“If I have to.”

“He’s invited us to his wedding,” Sabia said, equally quiet. “In September. The 21st.”

Clark nodded. “Alright. We’ll go if you want. Is that all?”

Sabia sighed. “Have some faith, husband mine.” She went to open the door and admit George. “Come back in here, you git.”

“Have a seat,” Clark said politely, as if George had only just walked in. Clark told Sabia to sit as well and then conjured up some tea. 

“Wedding date set, then?”

George nodded, mute.

“Andromeda Black.”

Another nod.

“Two sisters, right? A ten-year-old and a two-year-old?”

George sighed. “Yes.”

“Athacus’s brother just had a boy—Sirius. He’ll be in the same year as James at school.”

George glanced at Sabia, then at the hand Clark’s hand over hers. He nodded slowly. There was a frightening hardness on his face for a second, but then it passed and he nodded shortly.

“George helped me finish the defenses on the nursery,” Sabia said chattily. “I double-checked: they’re perfect.”

“Thank you,” Clark said suspiciously. “I’ll take a look right now.” He got up and went upstairs to the nursery, checking the spells on the walls, doors, and windows. They were annoyingly perfect. Anyone who came near the nursery from outside without the right password would be totally and thoroughly hexed until they couldn’t move, let alone run away. Clark frowned, trying to find something to criticize in the spell work. It was excellent. He took a moment to look down at James’s sleeping face.

James had his thumb in his mouth and was curled up. Clark passed his hand over James’s head, not touching, just feeling the warmth from the tiny, beloved body. He had to turn away and blink several times before returning to the kitchen. Sabia and George were sitting at the table in awkward silence. “Thank you. They’re airtight.”

George looked incredibly relieved that Clark wasn’t going to hit him. His entire face relaxed and his grip on the edge of the table loosened. “You’re welcome. It was the least I could do since…” He trailed off and stood, his robes settling into perfect lines. They were Charmed to do so, Clark supposed. 

“I’ll walk you out,” he offered, not ungraciously. He glanced at Sabia, who still looked tired. “You can sit—don’t worry.”

She made a face at him but cleared the table with her wand as the two men left the room. That had just reached the door when George made a sound of exasperation. “I’ll be right back.” He raced up the stairs, leaving Clark stunned in his wake. 

He had never known what happened between George and Sabia.

George was suddenly back. For the briefest of pauses the two men locked eyes—the first time that had done so that evening. Although George O’Brien was six years older than him, Clark felt inexplicable pity and contempt for the pureblood in front of him.

“Forgot my wand upstairs,” George said lightly. He held out his hand for Clark to shake. Clark shook it firmly and then let him leave the house, scoffing. No decent wizard even walked around a friend’s (for Sabia was, for all intents and purposes, George’s friend) without a wand. George O’Brien couldn’t be as smart as they said.

**……**

Sabia’s brother died two days before Christine was born. Three days after Sabia went into labor, Anna and Cara moved to Ireland. Clark watched Sabia’s every movement with a heavy heart. She raged and screamed at him after they signed the birth certificate and clawed at his pacifying hands, more often then not sobbing hysterically. Her delivery had been listless—she hadn’t the heart for pregnancy and babies after her brother died.

She only quieted when James was in her arms. He was almost a year-and-a-half old, already walking, but still perfectly content to lie in his mother’s arms and stare up at her face as she looked out the window. The other infant she wouldn’t look at. After holding Christine just after she was born, Sabia told the nurse to keep the girl from her sight. Clark sat with her every day, holding Christine if he had the chance.

The “accident” took place while Bryan was accompanying and old school friend on an inspection of Azkaban prison. After the inspection, his friend said, they set sail for the mainland and hit a sudden squall. The man said Bryan had fallen into the freezing depths of the Atlantic, but Clark had his doubts. The friend had been linked to the Malfoys.

It mattered not in the end. Clark had not understood how crippling Sabia’s grief for her brother had been until his father was found murdered in his bed. Andromeda Black’s father was convicted of the crime—Clark’s father had been sleeping with his wife. When the fact was made public and the good name ruined, Clark’s frail, ailing, dying mother locked herself in her room and quietly died in her shame.

The carnage of his life came as a great shock to Clark. Losing his parents left him with no drive to do anything—he didn’t care in the least when George quietly came to tell Sabia that his wedding was off, for Andromeda refused to be married when her father was still in prison for a crime he had not committed. Considering the fact that Wizarding law did not allow for second chances, and that Andromeda’s father had received a life sentence, Clark rather thought that she simply did not want to marry George at all. Even Clark had his doubts about her father killing his father. It seemed incredibly staged. 

With the death of his father the Research Department fell to pieces. Clark found that throwing himself into work, especially work that his father had been part of, took the edge off his grief and dulled his memories, his very senses. He and Jim, who had helped with James’s birth, silently divided the work between themselves, taking on the most work out of everyone.

Finally, one day in late December, the day before James’s birthday, Jim pulled Clark aside, a cream colored assignment file in his hand. “How’s Sabia?” he asked quietly.

Clark winced. He hadn’t touched his wife since October. They were snapping at each other even when James was in the room to witness their behavior.

“She’s fine.”

“James? Christine?”

Clark nodded shortly.

“You’ve been through a lot, Clark,” Jim began gruffly. “And you’ve done more here than I thought was possible.”

Clark waited. Jim was hardly ever uncomfortable, as he was now.

“I’ve been promoted.” Jim clenched his fingers; Clark saw the file in his hands crumple. It instantly straightened again.

“Head of the Department?” Clark asked.

Jim jerked his head. “Yeah. Shit—as if I need it more than you do. I’ve got something for you here.” He held out the file. It had a red tag on the side with the letter “M” written on it in bold font. It seemed to burn in Clark’s hands.

“I want to give you this. The Malfoys. Just—it’s the bloody Malfoys, Clark. You deserve this. Sabia does. This thing doesn’t bore you—you crack the Malfoys and you crack everything.”

“The Malfoys?” Clark repeated faintly. Bryan. His parents. Andromeda Black’s father—ruined: the fault of the name on this file. He looked up at Jim. “I’ll talk to Sabia,” he murmured, and then let it be.

**……**

Clark went home, spread the file on desk, and then sat back to wait for Sabia to come, as she always did. She had a baby on each hip and James running behind her, shrieking for his Daddy. Clark hoisted him up, called him a big boy, and then took Christine from Sabia. James’s face grew sulky when Sabia kissed Christine atop her downy head and smoothed her hand over her brow. She glanced at the table, turning dull eyes to Clark. “Practicing your reading?” she asked waspishly, running a hand through James’s hair. He had slipped from Clark’s lap and grabbed her leg.

“Sit, Sabia.”

She had never been able to refuse him when he spoke to her like that. She sat, cradling Christine in her arms.

“Go play in the nursery, James. Count how many presents you want tomorrow.” Clark gave James a push and he went, grinning toothily. He would be two tomorrow, a sturdy, confident boy with a charisma few adults even possessed.

Clark pushed the file towards Sabia. She did not look at it. “Divorce papers? You can see the children every weekend.”

“Shut up,” Clark said angrily. “Don’t ever talk like that. We’re not getting a divorce.”

She looked down at Christine’s head, her eyelashes sweeping down over her cheeks. Clark regarded her with level eyes. “The assignment is on the Malfoys.”

“I thought we refused it,” Sabia murmured. Christine, content in her arms, began to stir. Sabia made a comforting noise before looking up at Clark.

“Jim offered it again. He’s been promoted.”

Sabia looked at the file. The Malfoys had probably been responsible for her brother’s death, probably for Clark’s parents’ deaths and Andromeda Black’s father’s imprisonment. They had so much to answer for.

“I don’t want to bring their name into this house,” she said. Her eyes blazed as they met his. “Take it back tomorrow morning.”

Clark shut the file, something both cold and warm blooming in his stomach. Christine became fitful; she began to cry of hunger. He stayed in the kitchen as Sabi took the baby upstairs, thinking about the word divorce. Had that really been on her mind? They had hardly touched each other since Clark’s parents had died; they talked not at all. They lived in tense silence, softening only for their children. After two months of hardship, did Sabia really expect their marriage to fall apart—two people who loved each other as much as they did could never…

He suddenly had trouble breathing. He had always pushed aside the thought that Sabia had perhaps married him more for security than for actual love, but what if…what if…

He closed his eyes for a brief moment. Either way, he loved her more than enough for both of them. Clark turned off the light in the kitchen and went upstairs to the nursery. Sabia was just placing Christine in her crib, her shirt open, her exposed nipples dark against the blue veins that lined her pale skin. Clark smiled, his eyes on her naked flesh. He would have lingered, except Sabia was moving in a businesslike manner, clearly warning him away.

Clark went to find the disappeared James, who was in the master bedroom, asleep on the bed, sprawled over a toy dragon. Clark picked up the warm weight of his firstborn child, his son, and felt a rush of emotion. James’s precious head lolled in the crook of Clark’s elbow, his body turning against Clark in an example of complete and utter trust. Clark thought of Sabia then, and he could hardly stand to live with himself after he considered they way he had treated her in recent months. He settled James in his tiny bed in the nursery, Sabia’s favorite room. He stared at her back and the brushed past her, leaving her in the nursery with the children.

Clark summoned the file to their room and placed it on the dresser. He undressed and sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for Sabia to enter the room. She finally did, her bra in her hand and her shirt still undone. Clark held out a hand as she began to head for the dresser to change. She stopped, perplexed, but then he put his hands on her hips and tugged her in closer.

“Leave me alone. I’m disgusting right now.”

Her heart wasn’t in the refusal. Clark pulled her in even tighter, placing his cheek against her warm belly and feeling it rise up and down as she breathed.

“We won’t take on the Malfoys,” Clark swore, and pushed her shirt of her shoulders and rolled back on the bed with her in his arms. He took her then, her breasts tender, her stomach still the littlest bit pudgy from childbirth some nine months ago. He idly wondered how he had ever stayed away for so long—afterwards she curled up against him and exhaled loudly over his bare chest, her fingers playing with the fine hairs there. “James will be two tonight,” she whispered.

Clark made a noise deep in his throat. 

“I…Clark—I love them…you can’t…I love _you_ —”

He wanted to kiss her deeply, perhaps give it another go, but instead he held himself back and brushed his lips over her hairline, her eyes, her cheeks. “Shh,” he soothed. “We’ll get through. There’s nothing to worry about—” He murmured nonsense and sweet words in her ear for what seemed like hours before he realized, within his own dream, that he had fallen asleep. 

Clark, always a light sleeper, woke first when he heard the sound. It could have been anything—it was a strange _snap_ sound, as if someone had just fastened a catch or something of similar persuasion. He was about to shut his eyes and go to sleep again, but then he noticed something through the haze of sleep in his mind. Their door, always open, was completely and totally shut tight.

He threw the covers up and crossed the room in one bound. He yanked the door open; it hit the wall with a report like a Christmas cracker being pulled. He heard, as if from miles away, Sabia’s cry of awareness just when he reached the closed (usually open) door of the nursery. He rushed in.

For a moment he thought nothing was wrong. Pale moonlight drifted in through the open window, dappling James’s thick hair and making his skin glow ghostly white. Clark picked up his son and cradled his warm body in his arms. To his intense relief, James breathed on. Their children where safe—whoever had been in the house had not harmed the children, despite the fact that they had gotten past the charm George and Sabia had put on the nursery to keep out intruders. Sabia came in, her hands clutched about something. She took James from Clark, startling the slumbering toddler awake. Clark went to pick up Christine.

The object in Sabia’s hands had fluttered to the floor. Clark caught sight of it just as he reached the cribs. It was the file he had been given. It was emblazoned with a huge, glowing, red **X**.

Clark looked into the crib, already know in the deep recesses of his mind that something had been destroyed that night.

The moonbeams shone on obliviously into the night, throwing Christine’s innocent dead face and still body into sharp, silver-tinged relief.


End file.
